Teachers Flee Vienna Schools Because of Migrants + Video

According to a study by the Austrian Statistical Office, around seventy percent of school-age children in Vienna do not speak German in their everyday life. Hindering the education process is a growing problem in schools, with teachers quitting en masse in and around the capital.

Cover photo: Teachers are literally fleeing schools in Austria's capital because of migrants (Photo: AFP/Joe Klamar)

Austrian politicians blindly followed former German chancellor Angela Merkel's idealistic approach on mass immigration from Muslim countries during the first big wave of migration in 2015. And now, we are all suffering the consequences:

Austrian schools are no longer able to cope with the problem they have been entrusted with because integration is still not a compulsory subject for immigrants. In Vienna, the education system is already threatening to collapse,

– according to the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), which pointed out that the unchecked consequences of the past decade's uncontrolled immigration are now palpable in schools - and not just because of the influx of asylum seekers, who are adding 300 new pupils a month to Vienna's schools and who do not meet any of the prerequisites for school attendance.

The problem will continue to grow significantly, as the number of foreign nationals is generally higher in the younger age groups compared to the total number of foreign nationals, as shown by a recent population chart published by the Austrian Statistical Office. No wonder that street protests, such as the one we highlight below, are now commonplace.

There are almost 900,000 school-age children in Austria, of whom more than 20 percent do not have Austrian citizenship.

Vienna leads significantly with 39 percent, or nearly 80,000 children, followed by Salzburg in the capital region. Urban centers, such as state capitals, show a marked deviation from the average for their respective areas.

In the five districts of Vienna, the proportion of third-country children aged between six and fifteen exceeds thirty percent. Some districts, such as Brigittenau, Favoriten, and Ottakring, have rates above forty percent, while Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus and Margareten have rates exceeding fifty percent.

According to a study by the Austrian Statistical Office, around seventy percent of school-age children in Vienna do not speak German in everyday life. One-third of children starting school in Vienna lack adequate German language skills to follow the lessons, even though two-thirds of these children were born in Austria. This language gap not only poses a challenge for the children but also creates considerable difficulties for both parents and teachers.

Union representative Thomas Krebs reports that teachers are now fleeing Viennese schools in droves.

However, the FPO has proposed some solutions to address the situation in Austria:

Those who do not speak German should not be allowed to attend school,

– stressed Hermann Brückl, the party's education spokesman. He noted that language learning was not a problem for previous waves of refugees from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, or Yugoslavia, nor is it a problem for Ukrainian refugee children.

The issue, he said, has only now become glaringly apparent with immigration from Islamic countries.

The party also highlights that the cultural difference is reflected in the growing problem of violence in schools. Eight out of ten reported school crimes in Austria occur in Vienna, with ninety percent of these incidents committed by immigrant children.

The FPO has drafted a nine-point plan to address the problem, but, as Mr. Brückl pointed out, the ruling parties only show interest in such proposals during campaign periods or when they have to "copy and paste" someone else's work.

Cover photo: Teachers are literally fleeing schools in Austria's capital because of migrants (Photo: AFP/Joe Klamar)