New school subject brings financial education to Austria for everyone from autumn!

New school subject brings financial education to Austria for everyone from autumn!

The Austrian educational landscape will change fundamentally from the coming school year. Education Minister Christoph Return presented new plans for comprehensive financial education, which will be introduced as an integral part of the lesson from autumn 2024. This is particularly affected by the pupils of the business -class secondary schools, which are to be taught in the new subject “Business, Innovation and Sustainability”. This measure could be an important step towards improved financial education for children and adolescents.

The initiative for the introduction of the new school subject is also supported by State Secretary Ulrike Königsberger-Ludwig, which underlines the importance of financial education to avoid over-indebtedness. State Secretary Barbara Eibinger-Miedl emphasizes that financial education is rewarded because she promotes economic personal responsibility. This goes hand in hand with the results of a youth study that shows that many young people are very interested in learning more about finance and business.

Details on the new teaching content

The subject "Economy, Innovation and Sustainability" is taught both in the lower and upper level and is part of a wider educational strategy that is supposed to cover all ages from elementary school to Matura. The curricula in the AHS upper level is currently being revised and will receive a special focus on financial education from 2027/28. This was reported [the standard], which points out that around 1.2 million children and adolescents are in schools in Austria.

As part of this strategy, a new school certificate for secondary school schools is also introduced, which focuses on financial, economic or consumer education. In addition, the online portal Finanznavi is expanded as a digital guide for private finance decisions in order to support and promote well -founded financial education even outside the classroom.

support and pilot projects

The measure to strengthen economic and financial education is supported by various institutions and foundations in Austria, including the Austria Chamber of Commerce, the OENB and the first foundation. In December 2020, the Foundation for Economic Education was founded, which has set itself the goal of strengthening financial and economic education in school and extra-curricular education. The federal states and schools have already initiated pilot projects that support schools with a focus on economic education. From autumn 2022, 30 pilot schools will start in secondary level I to provide the students with age-appropriate teaching and learning materials.

The current financial education strategy that runs by 2026 is to be supplemented by a follow -up document in 2027 to ensure that the topic of financial education is integrated into the curricula. As [wko.at] reports, current studies draw a picture that points to a high need for catching up to the financial knowledge of the Austrians. The Federal Government has already decided extensive measures to close this educational gap and to accompany the students on their way to independent management and financial management.