The Austrian government has eased, from the current academic year, the strictness of an education policy requiring separate language classes for the children of migrants and refugees, after findings indicated links to social isolation and academic delays.
Schools choose alternatives to separate language classes
The amendments gave schools the authority to choose the method they considered most suitable for supporting foreign pupils, prompting half of Austrian schools to abolish the classes immediately. The policy had been introduced eight years ago under a right-wing government, with the stated aim of helping newcomers learn German and integrate.
However, pupils classified as being ‘outside regular lessons’ left their original classes every day to attend intensive language courses. Critics and experts described the approach as ‘ghetto classes’ because of the separation it created between students.
The Iraqi pupil Abdulrahman al-Janabi, 19, experienced this for two years, being barred from attending mathematics and science lessons with his peers at his school in Austria and required to leave his class for hours to learn German. Expressing his feelings of frustration and confusion, he said: ‘Why am I the only one being thrown out of the classroom?’
This system differs from the approach adopted in most European countries, where newly arrived pupils join the mainstream school system in full from their first day, allowing them to engage socially and academically. In Austria, the separate classes weakened the ties students could form with their peers and teachers in regular classes.
The Ukrainian pupil Makari, 16, described the impact of moving between study groups. Makari fled Kyiv in 2022 and said: ‘When you arrive at a new school, all you want is to fit in. But what happens is that we spend time with one study group, then that group suddenly disbands... We lose our friends and cannot build any rapport with the teachers in the regular class.’
Tens of thousands outside regular lessons
During the last academic year, about 60,000 pupils were classified as being ‘outside regular lessons’, requiring them to join separate language classes. In the capital Vienna, the classification covered one in five primary school children, with 35% of these pupils from Syria and 27% from Ukraine.
The effects of the system were not limited to psychological and social isolation. A recent assessment by the Education Ministry showed that 22% of the 22,800 pupils assessed between 2022 and 2023 had been required to repeat the academic year once, while 3% repeated it twice. Education Minister Christoph Wiederkehr described the rate as ‘far too high’.
Grade repetition reveals the cost of separation
Education expert Susanne Schwab of the University of Vienna attributed the problem to pupils remaining in language classes for too long, preventing them from being assessed in core subjects including mathematics and science. She explained that the lack of such assessment prevents them from advancing to the next level, leading to what she described as ‘automatic grade repetition’.
Schwab said the programme had been approved despite the ‘scientific consensus’ opposing it, arguing that it offered no solutions but instead generated multiple crises. Her position echoes a 2022 expert report that warned of ‘racist mechanisms and institutional discrimination practised under the guise of language support’.
Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed a rise in the proportion of pupils who are at least two years older than the usual age for their school level. In Austria’s primary schools, their share rose from 4.1% in 2015 to 5.8% in 2023, while in secondary schools it increased over the same period from 6.5% to 9.1%.
Political dispute over easing separation rules
The new flexibility prompted a political dispute, with the far-right, anti-immigration Freedom Party attacking the easing of the separation rules. The party won the 2024 legislative election for the first time in its history, but was unable to find partners to form a government, preventing it from implementing its hardline policies, while the effects of years of academic separation continue to affect thousands of migrant pupils.
