Experts in multilingual education on Wednesday called for a paradigm shift in how German is supported in kindergartens and schools. Current structures—German tests in kindergarten and school followed by separate support groups—place pressure on children, parents, and educators, dampening children’s joy in the language and failing the very purpose of promoting German proficiency, the experts argued at a press conference.
“The existing framework and testing make children see German merely as a means to pass the MIKA-D test, which determines placement in German support classes and courses,” warned Carmen Kovacs of Startklar, an early-language program that actively involves parents. “The creative, communicative, and social value of language is lost.” Reminding parents of their duties is not enough; they must also be provided with necessary information.
Requests from kindergartens and schools for Startklar’s support have risen sharply in recent years, Kovacs reported—“a clear signal that state structures are insufficient.” Kindergartens particularly need multi-professional teams that include dedicated German-support staff as permanent team members, added Natascha Taslimi of the Elementary Education Network (NEBÖ).
Saskia Hula, director of the full-day primary school Am Schöpfwerk in Vienna-Meidling, echoed the criticism. At her school, 90 percent of children start as “extraordinary pupils” due to German difficulties, even though most were born in Austria and attended kindergarten there. “Twenty-five years ago, the rate of German-deficient students was similar—and support then, as now, varied in quality. But today we conduct about 250 MIKA-D tests a year here—an enormous effort for little gain.” She noted a critical shortage of teachers trained specifically in German as a second language.
Linguist Verena Blaschitz of the Language Rights Network called for integrated, not separate, German support. Current tests—BEKS kompakt for kindergarten and MIKA-D—are “unsuitable” for assessing German skills. Proposed tests for three-year-olds would, like punitive measures, hinder rather than help language learning. True language acquisition is complex; support classes where the teacher is often the sole German model and children seldom speak actively show low rates of transition to regular classes within two years.
All agreed that improving the situation requires better parental involvement and more German-support teachers with specialized training. Multilingualism must be viewed positively—or at least normally—even for less prestigious languages like English or French, urged Blaschitz. Hula’s school celebrates students’ home languages: on reading day, books were read aloud in twelve languages. What remains “absurd” is that children with poor German are still taught from standard German-native textbooks.
Current offerings such as afternoon mother-tongue classes fall short in fostering true multilingualism: they are voluntary, staffed by teachers without comparable training, and cannot make the home language a language of instruction. Blaschitz welcomed the planned teacher-training reform mandating German-as-a-second-language courses for all new educators but cautioned that the proposed scope is too small to be truly effective.
