In the secondary schools

Capacity limits reached: school space shortage looms

A container village like the one at the Mira Lobe School on Aubrunnerweg requires a lead time of around a year.(Bild: Dostal Harald)

Linz is sounding the alarm! Just under 14,500 pupils attended a general compulsory school in Linz last school year. If you look back to the 1950s and 1970s, this is actually a low number, as there were well over 20,000 back then. But there is indeed a lot of fire on the roof!

Schools officer Dietmar Prammer emphasizes: "The current supply of school places may not be sufficient in September. But we will do everything we can to solve the problem. With a little more lead time, however, we could manage this more easily." According to Director of Education Julius Stieber, there are "interface problems" with the Directorate of Education.

We need the data from the Directorate of Education in order to plan better. The federal and state governments need to take action when it comes to teachers.

Dietmar Prammer, SP-Stadtrat, Referent für die Linzer Schulen

Number of classes unpredictable 
Prammer explains: "As a city, we can roughly predict the number of pupils, but not how many classes will result. Here we are reliant on information from the Education Directorate," says the SP city councillor, who continues: "Even if we create enough places, it is still not certain that the federal and state governments will be able to provide enough teachers."

The Directorate of Education responded promptly yesterday, saying that it has been aware of the problem for some time and assuring that sufficient teaching staff will be available at the start of school in 2024/25.

Being surprised now and shifting responsibility has absolutely nothing to do with responsible education policy.

Theresa Ganhör, VP-Gemeinderätin

"The shortage is absolutely no surprise"
VP local councillor Theresa Ganhör, herself a teacher, is completely uncomprehending of Prammer's move: "The shortage of school places is not a surprise - even if the city council wants to present it that way. We should have reacted long ago. Last school year, many pupils had to be distributed across the entire city because there was no more space in the educational facilities close to their homes."