Vienna youth workers say fines alone will not stop school truancy

School truancy is increasing in Vienna, but fines of up to 800 euros will not be enough to bring students back to class, the city’s mobile youth workers told ORF.

Skipping school is an administrative offence in Austria. Parents can be reported after their child has missed three lessons without an excuse. There were about 4,800 reports for breaches of compulsory schooling in the 2023-24 school year, rising to about 7,900 the following year, according to figures from a parliamentary inquiry by Vienna’s ÖVP to Education Councillor Beate Emmerling of NEOS.

Harald Zierfuß, the Vienna ÖVP’s education spokesman, called the figure “enormously worrying”, saying that children who miss several days of school without an excuse have fewer opportunities because they miss lessons. He said parents should be held accountable with high fines, while schools also needed support, including school social workers.

Fines have almost doubled since the start of this school year, rising from a maximum of 440 euros to 800 euros. But Manuela Smertnig, director of the Vienna Youth Centres, said prevention was more important than penalties.

“It is very important to invest more, especially in Vienna. Vienna is a very young federal state with many children and young people,” Smertnig said, arguing that cuts to education, support and school social work were not helpful.

She said it was also important to understand why young people were staying away from school. The global situation and social conflicts were further worsening the atmosphere in schools, she said. Youth workers often observed that young people saw little point in attending school and felt they had no future and that nothing that happened to them mattered.

Vienna’s education directorate told ORF it was closely monitoring the rise in truancy and was relying on early prevention and support systems.