Economic education is either built into the classroom as an interdisciplinary topic or taught as a separate subject. The project is implemented in the lower secondary level, i.e. primarily in middle schools and lower secondary schools.
According to the Foundation for Economic Education, which supports the schools in the implementation, the aim of the program is to “prepare the young people well for their life after school”. In addition to dealing with money, they should learn to understand economic relationships within the framework of economic education, other topics are the interplay of economy and democracy or the environment, economy from the perspective of entrepreneurs or employees, entrepreneurial thinking and acting and in general “future skills” such as critical thinking. It will start in autumn with an in-depth focus on economic education as part of the new curriculum for geography and economic education. The project also worked with curriculum developers, among others.
In the implementation as an interdisciplinary topic, subject-linked project weeks take place in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades, the topics planned are the realization of entrepreneurial ideas, handling money and research into sustainable economic relationships. Another project week on the subject of careers orientation in the 3rd or 4th grade is also planned. A topic should be worked on in four to five school subjects, and at least two hours a week of preparation and follow-up work are added to the project week itself.
If a school decides to implement this as a separate subject, it can offer one hour each in the 2nd and 3rd grade and one to two hours per week in the 4th grade within the scope of its school autonomy. However, there are no additional resources for this, the curriculum is being developed in consultation with the pilot schools.
In the project, the locations are supported by the Foundation for Economic Education, for example with partly newly developed teaching and learning materials, annual teacher training and support in the school development process. There is also an annual funding budget for materials, events, excursions or additional training. Whether the pilot project works in practice is being examined as part of a comparative study by the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS).
The possibility of implementing economics as a separate subject was criticized even before implementation. For example, the newly founded “Network for Sustainable Economic Education”, which includes the Chamber of Labour, Attac Austria and the Poverty Conference, has warned against the increasing influence of business lobbyists on schools. Instead, they generally plead for more interdisciplinary teaching in order to educate children to become informed, critical consumers.
Source: Nachrichten
