Lower Austria ÖVP accuses education minister of favouring Vienna

Lower Austria’s ÖVP has renewed its criticism of Education Minister Christoph Wiederkehr, saying he has delivered mainly “announcements” rather than practical solutions and is favouring Vienna in the allocation of resources, ORF reported.

At a news conference on Wednesday, ÖVP state managing director Matthias Zauner called on Wiederkehr, a member of NEOS, to implement the government programme, work with the states on joint reforms and avoid adding bureaucracy for schools.

The party said the distribution of the education “opportunity bonus” was unfair. Of 800 full-time-equivalent positions, only 38 would go to Lower Austria, while Vienna would receive 500, although Lower Austria has twice as many schools, said René Lobner, an ÖVP state parliament member and education spokesperson.

Lobner said children with different learning and developmental needs required individual support. He called for special schools to be retained and for specialised training in special education to be reintroduced.

He also criticised the presentation of school location data in the Bildungskompass, an education information tool, calling it misleading. Schools are placed in performance thirds without clearly explaining the basis or conditions for comparison, he said, likening it to comparing grades from different assessment scales without identifying which scale applies.

Zauner said reforms needed to work in practice, not just look good on paper. The ÖVP also rejected a six-year primary school, which Wiederkehr plans to trial at several locations next school year, saying it would be impractical in many Lower Austrian municipalities because of space constraints.

NEOS state leader Indra Collini said the ÖVP had misunderstood the opportunity bonus. Fewer schools in the programme were not a reason for criticism, she said, because the funding was targeted at schools facing particular social challenges rather than distributed across the board. She described the eligibility criteria as clear and transparent, and said having few such schools in Lower Austria was good news for the state.

Collini also defended comparisons in the Bildungskompass, saying they were intended to give parents and students guidance and help improve the education system through measurement and comparison.