Sustainable reforms in the education system require cross-party solidarity
Vienna (OTS) – The Foundation for Economic Education advocates a long-term Austrian education strategy that is supported by cross-party solidarity. Foundation board member Matthias Reisinger provided this impulse yesterday as part of the event “Future Dialogue on Education: Together for a Sustainable Education Strategy” in the presence of representatives from all five parties represented in the Austrian National Council. “International examples show that only a cross-party and cross-ideological education strategy can bring lasting improvements,” explains Reisinger and adds, “This requires the parties in the National Council to jump over their ideological shadow when it comes to the future issue of education and to work together to develop and support a long-term education strategy
.“
Reisinger brings up the topic of economic education as a prototype for such a strategy: “In over three years of working as a foundation, we have gained valuable experience in the conception and implementation of a complex educational policy change process. The integration of different organizations and the balancing of different interests is of central importance,” explains Reisinger, “In addition, economic education as a topic enjoys broad social support. 85 percent of students and all student representatives are in favor of more business education, as are 88 percent of companies and two thirds of the population
.“
This topic was discussed as part of the Future Education Dialogue. At the invitation of the Foundation for Economic Education, important stakeholders met last Tuesday evening to further develop the educational landscape. Two keynote speakers provided valuable insights into the “London Challenge”, a British example of successful, long-term education strategies. Afterwards, the representatives of all parties represented in the National Council, Hermann Brückl (FPÖ), Muna Duzdar (SPÖ), Sybille Hamann (GRÜNE), Martina Künsberg Sarre (NEOS) and Rudolf Taschner (ÖVP), discussed long-term education strategies for Austria.
Shared responsibility for the future
Educational organizations and states in Europe and around the world have already recognized that educating the next generations is the most important investment in the future. Some of them have already managed to agree on a long-term education strategy with all relevant stakeholders, which is being pursued jointly across parties and regardless of legislative periods. The Foundation for Business Education has been relying on synergies between different education-related organizations for years in order to achieve a major, common goal. Through this successful approach, she also initiated the dialogue for a long-term education strategy. “As part of our pilot project for business education, we were able to bring about lasting changes in the 60 participating schools after a short period of time – supported by a broad civil society alliance,” explains Reisinger. “We are happy to make the knowledge we have gained available and invite you as a non-partisan platform to develop a long-term and broadly supported education strategy
.”
Best Practice: London Challenge
At the event in the Vienna Impact Hub, Roland Bernhard, professor at the KPH Vienna/Krems, and Chris Tomlinson, CEO of the Co-op Academies Trust from Great Britain, spoke about the best practice example “London Challenge”. As part of this, it was possible to win over different stakeholder groups from a broad political spectrum for a long-term educational goal. Away from Britain’s elite schools, London schools have always appeared in the lower reaches of the school rankings. These usually struggled with various problems such as discipline and drug issues and were referred to as hotspot schools. The “London Challenge” program, which was carried out from 2003 to 2011, emerged from a collaboration between state and city politicians, which lasted through several changes of government during this time. “With a variety of measures, it was possible to ensure that the London schools had the best school results compared to the rest of the country at the end of the project. Even after the end of the project, the London Challenge had positive effects for every child in the school system
“, reports Chris Tomlinson, CEO of the British educational organization Co-op Academies Trust, in his keynote.
About the Foundation for Economic Education
The Foundation for Business Education was launched in 2021 to strengthen and spread the topic of business education in the Austrian education system and to support teachers in its implementation. Young people should be prepared for their life after school as early as possible with basic economic, financial and future skills. In order to achieve this, the foundation works to strengthen and disseminate life-world-related economic education in general school education. The foundation is supported by a broad civil society alliance that is particularly concerned with promoting the economic education of young people in Austria. The founding partners are the Chamber of Labor, ERSTE Foundation, Industrial Association, Innovation Foundation for Education, MEGA Education Foundation, Oesterreichische Nationalbank and Austrian Chamber of Commerce.
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