Migrant families with children who go to school without learning the German language risk losing access to family allowance benefits under new plans proposed by the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in the state of Lower Austria.
The financial sanctions would serve as an incentive to improve the German language proficiency of migrant children, many of whom do not currently speak any German at home and who then go to school unable to communicate effectively.
“If children don’t know a single word of German, there is no money. It’s that simple,” said Edith Mühlberghuber, the FPÖ family spokeswoman in Lower Austria. “This imported language problem must end. Financial sanctions could serve as a language boost, and if not, then the state will save itself a lot of money.”
Mühlberghuber warned that Lower Austria must avoid the issues faced by neighboring Vienna. Remix News reported in October on new statistics which revealed more than three-quarters of students in the Austrian capital’s middle schools do not speak any German at home.
According to Statistics Austria’s STATcube, only 8,479 of Vienna’s 26,816 middle school students use German as their primary language, while 76 percent predominantly speak other languages.
In specific districts, the numbers soar above 90 percent, with areas like Margareten (95.4 percent), Hernals (92.2 percent), and Alsergrund (91.2 percent) reporting the highest proportions of students speaking languages other than German at home.
“In Vienna, as everyone unfortunately knows, the situation is quite dramatic. We should also take a close look at the situation in the cities of Lower Austria,” said Mühlberghuber. “The fact that children come to first grade without a word of German is unacceptable. If all cash benefits are linked to language skills, the willingness to learn will increase.”
The FPÖ proposal aligns with recommendations made by Natascha Taslimi, chairwoman of the Austrian Elementary Education Network, who suggested integrating German language support into Austria’s parent-child pass. The pass includes mandatory check-ups, which are prerequisites for receiving family allowances.
Taslimi explained that many parents assume that kindergartens and schools will automatically teach their children German, but under current conditions, this expectation is unrealistic and puts an unfair burden on educators, which can impact the learning of other children.
“An elementary school teacher who is mostly alone with 25 children in the class cannot adequately support children in their multilingualism,” she said, stating that the effectiveness of kindergartens in language development depends on staff qualifications and working conditions.
It has taken its toll on many teachers, with reports from July last year revealing that up to 20 teachers were quitting the profession per day due to the extremely stressful environment.
According to teachers’ union member Thomas Krebs, teachers are fleeing Vienna’s compulsory schools “in droves.” However, the Vienna state government does not offer any useful ideas on how to deal with the increasing influx of students.
“On one peak day, I even received 20 reports of staff terminating (their contract) for the coming school year,” he stated.
The Exxpress news outlet reported how 45 percent of first-grade students in Vienna currently lack sufficient German skills to follow lessons, classifying them as “exceptional students” requiring additional support, which simply isn’t available on that scale. This is despite a majority of these children being born in Austria and attending kindergarten for more than two years.
Of the 20,000 exceptional students registered in schools across the Austrian capital, around 70 percent have Arabic as their mother tongue.
