We came from different countries and met at the Ministry of Education, Art and Culture, Concordiaplatz 1, Vienna. We were greeted by dr. Nikolaus Douda. He explained the Austrian school system which is particular for the European circumstances and very traditional. The children start their education when they are six years old and continue the primary school up to 12. After 4 years of primary education (Grundschule) they can choose a compulsory school (from 12 to 15 lower stage Hauptschule)) or a general grammar school (Gymnasium from 12 to 19). In cities like Vienna are compulsory schools more or less regarded as worse in comparison togeneral grammar schools. Many think these are schools for immigrant children. More than 70% of children form immigrant background, who can hardly speak German language go to compulsory schools. This is the reason that school authorities support the new ways of teaching, team-teaching with one or even two teacher in one class. The second teacher is the support teacher for children who have difficulties understanding the language, learning difficulties in general. For such teachers it is very important to speak more languages, perhaps one or two of the languages of the migrant minorities. We met one of such teachers, Esma from the so called “New Vienna Middleschool with special stress on sports and languages. She can speak Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Turkish and can really help children and their parents. Sometimes teachers cannot help children and their families to get better since no one in the family speaks German properly. Parents who come from lower social circumstances cannot help their children and speak a dialect of their country of origin. The language of their new country is sometimes too difficult for them and they use only spoken language of their surrounding, but cannot use the written language. Schools in underdeveloped, workers areas of bigger cities have a very important role in integrating children from different countries into the Austrian system and society.
After compulsory comprehensive education the way up can be in the direction of upper-secondary schools of a certain job orientation, upper- secondary school for assistants in preschool education, secondary vocational schools or on-the –job learning courses. The university level is only for students who have finished secondary education with the final exam (matura).
For the interesting invitation into the deeper research of Austrian culture and architecture, art and folklore, ways of life of the Viennese people has Renate Fainstauer prepared interesting tasks for the participants of the teacher exchange. They were due until Thursday.
Dr. Franz Schimek from the Europe office, who is responsible for the education in the city of Vienna has organised a pleasant meeting explaining the job of such an office. There are different project organised at different Vienna school. Teachers try their best to connect all of the social classes, different nationalities and make students aware of the importance of learning languages. There we met Esma, who came from Turkey when she was 8 and is now a successful German teacher.
