Vienna makes kindergarten mandatory to integrate migrants

Thu, 28 Jan 2010

Vienna - The city of Vienna decided Thursday that all children must attend kindergarten, in an effort to integrate migrants with poor language skills. Vienna's ruling Social Democratic Party has recently come under pressure from right-wing parties to start tackling migration issues in this city where 49 per cent of all elementary school children have a non-German mother tongue.

Over 80 per cent of children from migrant families that do not go to kindergarten have inadequate German skills for entering elementary school, a country-wide study showed last year.

"The earlier children enter kindergarten, the better and faster they learn the language, and that's what experts say," said Gaby Philipp, a spokeswoman of the municipal government.

The city parliament decided Thursday that all children must attend at least one year of kindergarten before entering school, starting from September.

A third of Vienna's 1.7 million inhabitants have an immigration background, with the largest groups coming from countries of former Yugoslavia and Turkey.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/306366,vienna-makes-kindergarden-mandatory-to-integrate-migrants.html.