Future opportunities: Burgenland's students discover new professional worlds in the futureefactory!

Future opportunities: Burgenland's students discover new professional worlds in the futureefactory!

Laimgrubengasse 10, 1060 Wien, Österreich - An alarming picture is emerging in the educational landscape! The shortage of skilled workers hits the economy hard, while the number of beginners in Austria falls at a frightening low. In Burgenland, for example, this number fell by 10.5 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year and is now only 749 young people. Presidency Andreas Wirth sees a crucial step towards combating the problem in the "FutureFactory", a new project by the Chamber of Commerce. "Professional orientation is becoming increasingly important - young people have to get the chance to deal with professions at an early stage," explains Wirth. This initiative should give the students of the 7th and 8th school levels of real insights into different professional fields and thus avoid wrong decisions in professional life.

The challenges of digital education

But not only the apprenticeship numbers are worried. The Icils study from 2023 shows that 40 percent of young people in Germany do not go beyond fundamental digital skills and that every second is affected at non-high school schools. This has an impact on the future prospects of the students who will have difficulty finding their way around the digitized world of work. It is all the more urgent that schools improve their digital skills and the use of digital media in class. In Germany there are still considerable differences in funding, whereby schools in challenging locations need special support. The requirements are not met everywhere, and a third of the students have no access to WLAN at school.

The "FutureFactory" should also offer the students the opportunity to work with modern technologies, which is of great importance in view of the results of the ICILS study. Because only those who gain practical experience can use the technologies profitably in everyday school life. There is a pressure on schools not only to create the technological requirements, but also to continue the teachers accordingly. The study makes it clear that theoretical knowledge without practical use hardly leads to the desired learning successes, which underlines the urgency of the initiative that the Chamber of Commerce has created, as Deutsches-schulportal.de reported.

The "FutureFactory" is therefore not only a project for career orientation, but also a necessary step into the digital future in order to counter the challenges of the shortage of skilled workers and digital educational deficits. It is expected that the active integration of the students into the professional fields of the future will lead to a reduction in the abortions and a higher number of qualified young people.