The corona pandemic and its consequences relentlessly reveal weaknesses in schools and kindergartens. “These problems do not arise anywhere, but in very specific places,” said Ercan Nik Nafs from the Vienna Child and Youth Ombudsman. There are weak points that existed before the pandemic, such as the excessive burden, the poor and poverty-threatened children and families have to bear. Staff and space shortages are chronic problems in kindergarten and school, which now have particularly negative effects.
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This goes so far that calls are being made to repeat the current school year at so-called “focus schools”, but also at some urban lower-level grammar schools, where enormous deficits were dragged along before the Corona. “Now there is such a big drop in performance that I can only see one solution: the school year would have to be repeated – by a large number of the children,” pleaded the book author (“Kulturkampf im Klassenzimmer”), former ombudswoman in the Ministry of Education and elementary school teacher in Favoriten, Susanne Wiesinger, in the current issue of the news magazine “profil”.
“Mildness, but no neglect”
At her school, this would apply to “a large part”, says Wiesinger. In response to Minister of Education Faßmann’s solution of using mildness instead of harshness when giving grades, she said that up to now, mildness had been exercised: “But the deficits have to be made up. Otherwise it is not mildness, but neglect.” The head of the compulsory school union, Paul Kimberger, is more confident. With intensive support in the summer semester, a lot can be repaired. Then at the end of the school year it is “no problem at all to issue certificates according to the usual criteria”.
KJA: Seizing the opportunity offered by a pandemic
Above and beyond current problems, the Vienna Child and Youth Ombudsman is calling for a comprehensive reform. The corona pandemic makes a lack of educational equality and thus poorer future prospects for some of the students particularly clear. Now this could be fought sustainably, says child and youth advocate Dunja Gharwal: “Rather, it is political decisions that keep the so-called educational inheritance in Austria at a high level. Accordingly, we also need political efforts to compensate for the disadvantages. “
The way is clear for the KJA: More all-day schools, more space, significantly more staff for individualized and independent work: “We need joint inclusive education until the end of compulsory schooling and more space for self-determination and individualization. We need consistent, integrative and multilingual language education across the entire educational career. We need new forms of performance review and more diverse, motivating forms of feedback ”, to name just a few of the demands of the KJA.
The increased inequality must be reduced. This requires supplementary and remedial lessons, individual solutions for every child and more staff. Whether the pandemic strengthens inequality or brings a fairer future will be decided now, according to the KJA. But the right to education must also be guaranteed in the pandemic. Solutions should minimize the risk of infection and protect children and young people from psychological crises. Small, stable groups combined with regular tests would be desirable from kindergarten to universities from February onwards.
Viennese pupils want more time for theses
Because of a different kind of inequality, student representatives from Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland wrote an open letter to Education Minister Heinz Faßmann. They demanded three weeks more time for submitting the pre-scientific work (VWA) or diploma thesis (DA). This is justified, for example, with the closure of libraries and difficulties in empirical studies. It is “completely incomprehensible that it is possible to postpone the Matura, but apparently not that of the VWA and DA taxes”.
In addition, high school students had not had classroom lessons since the autumn break and could only come to school in groups on a case-by-case basis. In addition, there are still missing discussions with the supervisors or work partners.
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