In addition to attending school, the pass was also used as an entrance ticket to events and bars. The creation and production of 1.2 million pieces including 28.8 million stickers cost 87,500 euros. The government spent five times as much on the application of the passport, the cost of advertisements was 430,000 euros, 163,800 euros were spent on advertising on ORF television alone, the remainder on advertisements in daily newspapers and magazines as well as on radio spots.
This emerges from the answer to a parliamentary question from the FPÖ to Education Minister Heinz Faßmann (ÖVP). The liberal education spokesman Hermann Brückl locates a pure waste of money.
“If the ninja test pass was automatically distributed to the schoolchildren in the school classes anyway and the children documented their tests with stickers, why did this sticker pass have to be advertised on ORF and in various print media for almost 432,000 euros?”, Brückl asks im Talks with the APA and gives an answer right away: “This is a pure waste of tax money and was only used for self-PR for ÖVP education minister Faßmann.”
