Vorarlberg cuts funding for integrated all-day classes

Vorarlberg’s state government is cutting funding for integrated all-day classes by 70,000 euros next school year, ORF reports. The measure affects the 11 remaining locations offering this model.

The government has adjusted its guidelines for funding school childcare. Integrated all-day classes will now receive the same funding as the separate model, in which children attend lessons in the morning and receive afternoon care for homework and other activities.

In integrated classes, lessons and leisure activities alternate throughout the day, with all children remaining in the same class. They stay at school until 4 p.m. on four of five school days.

Education councillor Barbara Schöbi-Fink said increased funding had failed to make the model more attractive. The state had raised its contribution to staffing costs for leisure hours from 60 to 80 percent and had conducted an information campaign with mayors.

Despite those measures, the number of integrated classes fell. Last school year, 13 school locations offered 47 such classes, compared with 77 classes two years earlier.

Overall, the availability of all-day childcare increased. Almost 71 percent of primary schools, lower secondary schools and lower divisions of academic secondary schools in Vorarlberg offered all-day care last school year, compared with about 61 percent five years earlier.

Schöbi-Fink said parents needed integrated all-day classes and municipalities supported them. She said the model often failed to win approval from schools and teachers because of employment rules.

Teachers who take on leisure hours in integrated classes currently work under two contracts: one as a teacher and another as a leisure educator employed by the municipality. The education directorate is responsible for teachers, while municipalities are responsible for leisure educators.

The state wants responsibility for all school staff to be placed with the education directorate. A draft federal law addressing the issue is expected by the end of the year.

Vorarlberg will not wait for the reform and will return to the standard funding rate. It will continue to cover 60 percent of municipalities’ staffing costs, Schöbi-Fink said, but added that the evidence showed higher funding had not increased the number of integrated classes.