A shocking 44.6% of first-graders in public elementary schools in Vienna lack the necessary German language skills to follow the lessons, Austrian daily Der Standard has revealed. This number is astounding in itself but is even more shocking when considering that only two years ago, the figure was 36%.
The rising number reflects poorly on the Austrian state’s ability to properly integrate immigrants into society and also highlights how the pro-migration policies of recent decades have ultimately transformed the Central European country.
The data, released by the Vienna city council, shows that the percentage of pupils who find it hard to speak or understand German is particularly high in districts with a high proportion of migrants. In the district of Margareten for example, where the proportion of people of foreign origin was over 52% last year, 73.8% of first-graders do not speak sufficient German.
As Der Standard reports, 61% of the children who struggle with German were born in Austria—and 24% have Austrian citizenship—meaning they were not hindered by having lived abroad for many years.
The inability to speak German properly at a young age has a long-term negative effect on the children’s education: according to international PISA tests, 15- and 16-year-olds with a migrant background are lagging behind in mathematics, reading, and science.
The Viennese opposition centre-right People’s Party has suggested that at the age of three, all children in Vienna should be subjected to a language level assessment, and those who are found to lack German language skills should be forced to attend kindergarten longer than the currently mandatory one year.
Under the leadership of the Social Democrats, Vienna has become a haven for migrants, as almost half of all Vienna residents (49.7%) are either migrants or born to migrant parents.
As we reported earlier, the Austrian capital is handing out generous benefits to migrants, and the revelation that a Syrian family with seven children receives €4,600 per month caused a huge outrage.
It is no wonder—according to a new report—that last year, half of all migrants who lived in other parts of Austria, and whose asylum applications were accepted, eventually moved to Vienna.
“When you learn in Syria and Afghanistan that as an extended family you can get €4,600 euros from Viennese social benefits alone for doing nothing, then you don’t have to be surprised if these people all come to Vienna,” Dominik Nepp of the anti-immigration FPÖ party said.
