Number tends to stagnate

No “flight to private schools” so far

The much lamented "flight to private schools" has not yet taken place. On the contrary, the proportion of children in private schools has only increased slightly in recent decades - recently it has even declined slightly again, as figures from Statistics Austria show in the new volume "Education in Figures 2022/23". Depending on the type of school, the proportion of children in private schools ranges from around five percent (elementary school) to one third (vocational middle schools/BMS).

In absolute terms, the highest number of private pupils is at AHS. Between 1990/91 and 2022/23, their number actually increased in absolute terms from 22,300 to 34,500 - but this is mainly due to the generally stronger growth in the number of pupils at AHS. At the beginning of the 1990s, the proportion of private pupils at AHS was 14.1 percent. A decade later it was 15.2 percent, and in 2010/11 it was 15.8 percent. Since then, however, the proportion has remained unchanged.

Around five percent at elementary school
The trend is similar at primary and secondary schools. At the beginning of the 1990s, 14,700 children at elementary school attended a private institution, which corresponded to a share of four percent at the time. By 2010/11, this figure had grown to 16,400 or five percent. Since then, however, the proportion of private primary school pupils has remained more or less constant. Between 2020/21 and 2022/23, it even fell minimally in both absolute and relative terms. Most recently, 17,700 out of 360,000 primary school pupils attended a private school, or 4.9 percent.

The situation is almost parallel at secondary schools: in 1990/91, 9,900 children and young people were enrolled at a private institution (then still a secondary modern school), which was a share of 4.1 percent. By 2020/21, this figure had risen to 12,200 or 5.9 percent - since then, the absolute number has grown minimally and the relative share has fallen slightly.

Higher proportion of vocational schools
Traditionally, there is a comparatively high proportion of private schools in the area of intermediate and higher vocational schools, where the Chamber of Commerce, among others, is responsible for institutions, e.g. in the tourism sector. The proportion of private pupils at BMS has remained constant at around one third since the 1990s - in absolute terms, their number has fallen from 19,000 to 16,300, with the overall number of BMS pupils falling.

Vocational secondary schools (BHS) are the only school type to show a continuous increase in private pupils, both in absolute and relative terms. Since the early 1990s, their number has risen from 13,200 to 22,100 and their share from 12.5 to 15.7 percent.