At the beginning of the 2022/23 school year, there were around 1.16 million children and young people in Austria’s schools. That is 19,300 more students than in the previous year (plus 1.7 percent). There is a plus, especially in compulsory general education schools. This is primarily due to migration from Ukraine from spring 2022, according to a statement from Statistics Austria on Tuesday.
After a sharp decline in the number of students in elementary schools, there have been slight increases again since 2016, mainly due to immigration from 2015. From 2021 to 2022, the number of elementary school students rose by 3.5 percent to 360,000 due to the influx as a result of the Ukraine war, according to Statistics Austria . The increase was particularly large among elementary school students with non-Austrian citizenship (plus 11.5 percent to 78,700).
In the previous school year, a total of 36,500 children were classified as exceptional students because they spoke insufficient or poor German and were therefore assigned to a German remedial class or course.
More students in AHS lower school
In middle schools, attendance figures have been declining since 2004 – with one outlier in 2016. Here, the last school year, with almost 213,100 students, also brought a noticeable increase of 3.5 percent compared to the previous year. The proportion of children with foreign nationality rose from 21.7 to 23.8 percent.
At the AHS lower levels, where student numbers have been increasing for ten years, a new high was reached again with over 125,000 students (plus 0.9 percent). In a ten-year comparison, the number of students at the AHS lower school has increased by 12.2 percent.
At secondary level II (AHS upper level, BMHS, vocational schools) the development progressed differently depending on the type of school. Figures in the AHS upper school continue to show a slight upward trend with an increase of 0.1 percent compared to the previous year. Overall, the numbers at vocational secondary schools (BHS) continue to decline slightly.
