Authority contradicts

Teacher warns: “Schools are at capacity”

Around 200,000 children and young people go to school in Upper Austria.(Bild: Dostal Harald)

After teachers' trade unionists in Vienna raised the alarm about the threat of overcrowding due to many new schoolchildren being reunited with their families, Upper Austria's top teacher representative has now also warned: "We are at the limit of our capacity." However, the Education Directorate has not received any reports of problems as a result.

Teachers' union members in Vienna recently warned, as reported, of an overload in the school system because many children are currently being admitted to classes due to family reunification by persons entitled to asylum. What is the situation in Upper Austria?

"We've reached the capacity limit and in many schools we've even exceeded it. You can't just put a class in every broom cupboard. But you also can't increase the maximum number of pupils in a class when it comes to language support," says the state's top compulsory school teacher union member, Paul Kimberger, who admits, however, that Upper Austria is nowhere near the numbers in Vienna. And: All central areas are confronted with an influx of new residents. "It's not just family reunification, but above all."

Many children from Syria are traumatized. This is not just a question of language support, but also of a therapeutic approach.

Paul Kimberger, Chef der Pflichtschullehrer- Gewerkschaft OÖ

New center for integration issues
Around 9,000 applications to bring relatives home were received nationwide last year, of which around 2,300 were for children of compulsory school age (in comparison: there are around 600,000 compulsory school pupils in Austria). According to Kimberger, many of them come from Syria and are often traumatized; the teacher representative is therefore calling for support staff such as psychologists and social workers.

However, no school region has reported problems due to family reunification to the Upper Austrian Education Directorate, according to a request. However, integration will always remain a challenge. A new center, which is available to teachers to answer questions, has been well received.