Indicator history

The regular Austrian school system can be characterized as being very selective in regard to students with migrant and refugee background and coming from socially weak families. The dropout rate among those adolescents is quite high. This diagnosis is also supported by the findings of a study carried out on behalf of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture in 2007. The proportion of students dropping out from the school system who are Austrian citizens and whose first language is German is 7.2%. The dropout rate of students of the so-called 2nd or 3rd generation of migrants and whose first language is not German is 15.6% and of those without EU-citizenship amounts to 29.8%.

Results of the PIRLS-survey 2006 concerning the performance of students in elementary schools in the field of mathematic and natural science show that the performance of students at the end of elementary schools is corresponding to the average OECD-performance. However, students whose parents weren't born in Austria, are performing below the international average.

Findings of the PISA-survey 2006 reveal that the performance of Austrian students at the end of compulsory schooling corresponds to the average performance of students in the OECD-region in the fiels of reading, mathematics and natural sciences. However, the performance of students coming from families with migration background is significantly below the average. Students of the second or third generation of immigrations are scoring less than Austrian students. Whereas the reading abilities of 25 per cent of students with migration background was corresponding or above the OECD-average, the percentage of Austrian students in this regard amounted up to 50 per cent. Especially concerning highest or lowest scores the performance of non-Austrian students was considerably less compared to Austrian students.

Source: Steiner, M./Wagner, E. (2007) Dropoutstrategie, Grundlagen zur Prävention und Reintegration von Dropouts in Ausbildung und Beschäftigung, Studie im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur, November 2007, available at: http://www.bmukk.gv.at/medienpool/16245/do_strategie_endbericht.pdf; http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/2/51/44584913.pdf