Party of Labour of Austria (PdA) and Jugendfront criticize curriculum reform

Education Minister Christoph Wiederkehr of the liberal NEOS party described the curriculum reform set to take effect in the upper grades of AHS schools starting in the 2027–28 school year as a “good compromise” during a press conference. In a new statement, the PdA and Jugendfront rejected this as a “curriculum reform in the service of capital,” arguing that it served the ideological and economic demands of capitalism rather than the educational advancement of students.

The planned reform includes a new required course titled “Media and Democracy.” According to the PdA and Jugendfront, this would create a new instrument of ideological class struggle from above:

“To expect a materialist and critical analysis of bourgeois democracy and its media landscape within the framework of this subject would be naive wishful thinking. Even now, in subjects like geography and history, the capitalist system—along with its competitive mindset and isolation—is positively glorified and presented as having no alternative. Given that young people’s trust in the bourgeois social order is increasingly being shaken by imperialist wars as well as economic, social, and ecological crises, ‘Media and Democracy’ is intended to instill order in the minds of young people and thus contribute to the ideological reproduction of the system.”

The new focus on “current issues” is also criticized, as it is expected that these will be distorted in the interests of capital.

The new required course “Media Literacy” was also viewed critically, as it runs the risk of “not aiming to analyze ownership structures and the resulting interests in the media landscape, but rather of being part of the ideological struggle within imperialist competition. While media from Russia or China are categorically labeled as propaganda, the close ties between the country’s own bourgeois media and banks, corporations, and bourgeois parties are generally swept under the rug.”

Furthermore, the Youth Front and the PdA condemned the increasingly forced orientation of instruction toward so-called “performance competencies.”

The statement concluded with clear demands for “overcoming social inequality in the education system, which manifests itself in unequal educational opportunities along class lines,” as well as genuine “democratic participation by students and teachers” and the “establishment of an education system oriented not toward the needs of capital, but toward the all-round development of the human being.”