About 50,000 students in Lower Austria required tutoring in the previous school year, with six out of ten families using paid support, according to data from August 2026.
According to the Tutoring Barometer 2026 of the Chamber of Labour, about one-third of all students in Austria, or 338,000 children and adolescents, required tutoring.
Financial Costs and Parental Time Load in Lower Austria
Six out of ten students who receive additional help also use paid lessons. On average, the costs for parents amount to about 780 euros per child and school year. In total, families in Lower Austria spent nearly 23 million euros on these educational services.
Aside from the direct financial expenses, the study also shows a high time load for parents. Six out of ten students study with their parents at least once a week, and a quarter almost every day. This daily academic effort burdens 78 percent of those surveyed. Markus Wieser, president of the Lower Austrian Chamber of Labour, emphasized that educational success must not depend on how much money, time, or pedagogical knowledge parents are able to provide, and pointed out that educational success should not depend on household income or pedagogical knowledge.
Primary Subjects and the Shift to Emergency Tutoring
The demand for additional support is strongly concentrated on core subjects. Mathematics dominates with 69 percent of tutoring requests, followed by German with 39 percent and foreign languages with 16 percent.
The data also show a clear change in the approach to tutoring. Instead of being used early on to strengthen basic knowledge or to address small gaps, tutoring is increasingly being used as an emergency measure. The data show that tutoring is particularly frequently used when a student has a poor grade or an important exam coming up. The proactive use of tutoring to deepen the standardized curriculum is decreasing.
Methodology of the Representative Study
The comprehensive data come from a representative survey conducted by the opinion research institute IFES on behalf of the Chamber of Labour. The national research collected data from parents of primary school children, excluding vocational schools, health care schools, and academies. In Lower Austria, 683 school children in 451 households were surveyed. The survey took place between mid-March and the end of May, using online and telephone surveys.
Calls for Institutional Support and Free Learning Programs
The chamber representatives emphasize that schools must be better equipped with staff and resources, as well as the expansion of free, school-based learning support programs to alleviate the burden on families.
