TIROLER TAGESZEITUNG, editorial: “Not enough” by Matthias Christler

2023-09-11 20:00:35

Issue from Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Innsbruck (OTS) – The school year begins as the old one ended – with a leisurely week and working parents who have to take care of childcare. With a little better organization, the school could support them in this.

The school system is currently raising many questions that concern children and parents from day one: Will a career changer come into the class as a teacher? Will WiFi make digital teaching possible this year? At least the pressure of grades is still a long way off, because there is hardly any “material” given in the first week. And that’s exactly what extends the pressure on many parents for a few days. Over the past nine weeks, working people have had to stretch to the limit, both in terms of time and money, so that the children were well looked after – but they can’t breathe a sigh of relief on the first days of school.

You don’t even have to look at Germany, where after six to seven weeks of vacation, children are usually taught according to the timetable on the first day of school. It is enough to make a comparison with local kindergartens. From the first day after the holidays, they managed to regulate operations in such a way that the parents were relieved.

You shouldn’t lump all Tyrolean schools together. In secondary schools, learning often starts from day one. However, it can also happen that in a community one primary school is well organized to start with, and the second one is only organized from the middle of the week. It varies depending on the location and director. Some stick to word for word the lines given to them by the 2017 Education Reform Act: The school principal must announce the timetable “within the first two days of the school year”. If anything, this is a satisfactory approach.

There could be a “Very Good” rating for principals who, at the end of the school year – in the last week, which is also relaxed – think together with teachers and students about how the first days after the holidays could be organized. How about theme days, for example on how to use digital media, which the students learn about in their everyday lives? But our school system doesn’t allow something like that. The organizational effort is already too great for many school principals and teachers, and the constraints of the system are too tight. And that is not enough.

The relaxed start to the school year has many advantages: the children have time to renew their social contacts or to enjoy the last beautiful days of summer with grandma or grandpa without the pressure of homework. But many parents, not just single parents, who work and cannot rely on a well-established social network, have to keep the family system running. And they have to organize it well, very well. The school system should take this as an example.