"Educational construction sites"

“All-day offers must be expanded”

During his visit to Vorarlberg, Christoph Wiederkehr was on the road with NEOS state leader Claudia Gamon.

(Bild: sos)

Vienna's Deputy Mayor and Education Councillor Christoph Wiederkehr (NEOS) has identified a number of "educational construction sites". In addition to the expansion of all-day childcare and education services, he would like to introduce the opportunity index, which has already been tried and tested in Vienna and provides more resources for schools in hotspots, throughout Austria.

"Krone": If you were Minister of Education, what would be your first official act?
Christoph Wiederkehr: I think it is extremely important that there is once again a Minister of Education who has vision. In recent years, although reforms were urgently needed, nothing has progressed. It would be very important to launch an offensive in terms of all-day childcare and education. This is not only necessary for parents who have to reconcile work and family life. All-day schools also guarantee a successful educational career and contribute to language acquisition.

The number of school-age children who do not speak German is also enormous in Vorarlberg. What needs to be done?
Language support must begin as early as kindergarten. In Vienna, the budget has been massively increased so that the transition to elementary school works better. Nevertheless, there are still some children who do not speak German.

Despite a compulsory kindergarten year?
That is not enough. A second year would be necessary for this target group.

The solution would be a second compulsory year of kindergarten instead of school attendance?
No, because school attendance is compulsory. There should be a massive increase in funding for children who need special language support - nationwide. Another approach would be to use the summer vacation. Children have nine weeks of summer vacation. Plenty of time for them to learn and prepare for the school year. In Vienna, we therefore introduced summer German courses for the first time in 2023.

But they're not compulsory?
No, that's not legally possible. This summer, 3,000 children attended these courses. That's a pretty decent figure for the second year. However, I also see that the parents of those children who urgently need the German course are not following suit. These are mothers and fathers who would rather spend nine weeks on vacation at home. That's not fair to the children. And that's why I'm also in favor of a change in federal law that would make it compulsory for exceptional pupils to attend the summer German courses for at least two weeks.

Christoph Wiederkehr (NEOS) has been Deputy Mayor of the City of Vienna and City Councillor for Education, Youth, Integration and Transparency since November 2020.

(Bild: Bissuti Kristian)

How should problems at disadvantaged schools be solved?
Our concept in Vienna is based on the opportunity index, which already exists in various countries. Schools with particular challenges - i.e. those with many children who speak little or no German or where there are many parents with low educational qualifications - must be given more resources. The additional financial resources can then be used, for example, to reduce class sizes or bring more social workers into the school. More resources are needed for urban areas throughout Austria.

Wouldn't it make sense to consolidate the education agendas at federal or state level?
Yes, please! As the state councillor responsible for education, I am very much in favor of restructuring federalism in Austria. I wouldn't mind at all if I ended up with no more tasks, but there was a clear distribution of responsibilities. The main problem in the education sector in Austria is the party-politicized education directorates with several political leaders at federal, state and municipal level. There are definitely too many players.

Where would you like the competencies to lie?
This should be discussed with an open mind. My approach would be to turn the education directorates into institutions that are truly independent of party politics. The individual tasks and responsibilities should also be questioned. For example, it is still not clear who is responsible for social work in schools. This is problematic because these tasks are not carried out with the appropriate responsibility.

What tasks should the municipalities have?
A municipality that is responsible for social space planning must always play a role. It is not logical that the municipality is responsible for building and maintaining secondary schools, but the federal government is responsible for grammar schools. That belongs in one hand.

The NEOS believe that a lot needs to change in the education sector.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/Kzenon )

What role does the federal government have?
That of central control of content. A clear framework must be created at federal level and curricula must be streamlined. At the same time, more emphasis should be placed on school autonomy. This could save resources at the education directorates, which would then go directly to the schools.

Is the joint school for ten to 14-year-olds, which is also much discussed in Vorarlberg, now dead?
It should be revived, because the idea still makes sense. We NEOS don't like the early separation of children. In any case, the ultimate goal must be that all children who leave school have basic skills in reading, writing and arithmetic.

Is the grammar school then an outdated form of school?
The grammar school fulfills the important purpose of preparing young people for the Matura. However, if the entire school system were to be overhauled, the range of subjects taught at grammar schools would also have to be questioned. The focus should be on better economic education. Democracy studies would be desirable as a separate subject.

Would you remove Latin and Ancient Greek?
The curriculum as a whole needs to be decluttered. I am convinced that a third could be removed to make room for more modern subjects. As a politician, however, I don't want to say that this or that subject can be cut. Politicians have a responsibility to set the framework. At the end of the day, it should not be a question of the pupils absorbing a lot of knowledge, but of learning social skills and the ability to cooperate.

Won't that make people dumber and dumber?
If you learn how to acquire and contextualize knowledge, you become smarter. I prefer a child who is curious and critically questions the world to one who has memorized mathematical forms.