Vienna fails to win support for earlier summer holidays

Vienna’s proposal to bring forward the summer holidays failed to win a majority at a meeting of state education representatives, ORF reported. The city will now look for other ways to reduce heat in schools.

Classroom temperatures were particularly high this June, at times well above 30 degrees Celsius. Politicians agree that a solution is needed before next summer, but several states argued at the meeting in Vorarlberg that shifting the holidays would only partly address the problem.

Vienna’s education councillor, Bettina Emmerling of NEOS, said the city would continue to make schools more resistant to heat, including by providing more fans and cooling and air-conditioning units. The proposal had prompted debate even before the meeting, with experts questioning how effective it would be.

GeoSphere Austria estimates that starting the holidays two weeks earlier would save Vienna’s schools an average of just half a hot day. Emmerling said she still wanted to pursue the idea, arguing that further observation of next summer could show whether June brings more problems than late August.

Vienna has already eased the rules for mobile air-conditioning units and fans in schools for next year.