Parents with school-age children in Austria now have two online tools to help them make an important decision: where to send their children to school.
One comes from Austria's Ministry of Education, while the other was launched by the Lower Austria Chamber of Labour (Arbeiterkammer, or AK) and is now being presented by AK Wien.
The first, Bildungskompass, went live on October 8th and pulls together school data from across the country.
The second, AK Schul-Scan, was presented in Vienna on Wednesday, October 14th and lets users compare secondary schools in Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland.
Bildungskompass: for those who want to find out about and compare primary schools
The Ministry of Education runs the Bildungskompass, a platform that brings together official information on educational institutions across Austria.
Parents can search for schools by state, municipality, address, or institution type. You can also view their locations on a map.
For now, the most detailed data is available for Volksschulen, primary schools that take children in the first four years of compulsory education, generally ages 6 to 10. The site provides information on student numbers, class sizes (number and average), and assessment results in German reading and mathematics (something that wasn't previously available to the public).
However, the results aren't intended to be used as a ranking of the best schools.
The results are presented in comparison with schools serving pupils from similar socio-economic backgrounds and are aggregated over several years. This aims to avoid unfair comparisons between schools operating in very different contexts.
If you're looking for a primary school and want to know how many pupils it has, what its class sizes are like and what its educational results are, Bildungskompass is currently the most useful option.
The government plans to expand the platform gradually. From 2027, more data on secondary schools will be included.
READ ALSO:How Austria’s new tool can help parents choose a school
AK Schul-Scan: for those choosing their next educational path
The AK Schul-Scan, meanwhile, was developed to help pupils finishing the eighth year of school in Austria (usually around age 14) decide where to continue their studies.
Austria offers several upper-secondary pathways, from general academic education to schools specialising in technical and vocational subjects.
For example, a teenager interested in IT might choose a technical school. Another might choose an institution focused on business administration.
The tool lets users search for schools based on the student’s interests, including technology, languages, the arts, health, tourism, economics, and other fields.
Users can also compare the subjects on offer and the number of lessons allocated to each.
The website also offers filters by location, distance from home, school type, cost, and boarding availability.
The platform covers schools in Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland, including technical schools (HTL), business schools (HAK), schools specialising in economic and social fields (HLW) and academic upper-secondary schools (AHS-Oberstufe).
If your child is nearing the end of the eighth year of school and you want to compare courses, specialisations, and subjects offered by schools, the AK Schul-Scan is the best option, as long as the search is within one of the three covered regions.
So, which of the two tools is better?
It depends on what you’re looking for.
If you’re looking to choose a primary school, the Bildungskompass provides information to help you get to know each school better, including class sizes and educational indicators.
If the decision involves a teenager’s future education, the AK Schul-Scan allows you to research educational options and what each school teaches.
Another important difference is geography: Bildungskompass covers all of Austria, while Schul-Scan is limited to Vienna, Lower Austria, and Burgenland.
Both platforms are available in German.
Neither tool replaces a school visit or guarantees a place. The websites help you research your options, but enrolment still depends on each institution's rules and admission procedures.
READ ALSO:'Explore all options': How can parents in Austria choose the right school?
Where can you access these tools?
Bildungskompass – official information on schools across Austria, with more detailed data on primary education.
AK Schul-Scan – a comparison of secondary schools and their specialisations in Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland.
READ ALSO:What parents need to know about applying for Vienna's state schools
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