Austria: Number of first grade students drops
Express newspaper
26/08/2025 19:57
The 2025/26 school year will start on Monday in Eastern Austria and a week later in the rest of federal Austria, marking for the first time in several years a 0.7% decrease in the number of school freshmen, ORF writes, albinfo.ch reports.
According to the latest statistics, 94,500 first-grade students will start school in September, a decrease of 3.7% compared to last year. The total number of students remains almost unchanged, at around 1.166 million children and young people, a minimal increase of 0.3%.
The decline in the number of new entrants marks a reversal of the long trend of growth: in the 2018/19 school year, first grades numbered around 85,000 children, while in 2024/25 this figure approached 98,000.
Forecasts for other school groups show stability:
High schools: 219,000 students, no major change.
Special education: 15,500 students, also stable.
High schools: minimal increase to 218,000 students.
Vocational schools: 1.5% increase to 114,000 students.
Vocational secondary and higher schools (BMHS): 1.7% increase to 186,000 students, albinfo.ch reports.