The Austrian Context of Computers in Education

Abstract

The Austrian school system is hierarchically organized and highly centralized. Decisions about the structure and organization are made by the federal parliament, where a two-thirds majority vote is required to pass important school laws. The Federal Minister for Education decides about curricula and teacher training. The federal government also directly or indirectly pays for nearly all teachers, schoolbooks, and transportation to and from the schools. Local, provincial, or federal authorities, depending on the type of school, are responsible for the funding and maintenance of school buildings and the availability of educational materials such as computers. Computer education in Austria started in the mid-1970s when vocational higher schools began to offer subjects of applied computer use like wordprocessing. Higher schools followed by adding informatics courses in 1985, and a curricular “computer literacy” principle took effect for all general lower secondary schools in 1989.

The Author would like to thank Dr. Gottfried Wetzel, who gathered data and information for this article (especially for section 1) and reviewed the text carefully. Special thanks are also expressed to Ursula Itzlinger and Gudrun Queitsch for their support.