Only 30.9% of children in Austria attended a school offering full-day care last year, Education Minister Martin Polaschek has announced.

Responding to a question from a member of parliament, Polaschek noted that 227,399 children in compulsory general education across Austria were enrolled in a full-day primary, middle, special, polytechnic or lower secondary AHS schools during the 2023-2024 academic year.

Austria has 2,984 schools categorized as full-day, where children are cared for well into the afternoon. Hours vary but Education Ministry guidelines require that teachers must be available until 16:00.

However, only 256 of these are fully-fledged full-day facilities, offering a mix of lessons, study and leisure time, as well as meals.

Half-day schools, by contrast, require parents or caregivers to collect their children once classes finish.

Over the past five years, efforts have been made to build more full-day schools, particularly at the primary level, with much of the expansion driven by Vienna.

In Vienna, half of children aged six to 15 attended a full-day school during the 2023-2024 school year, compared to 41% in Vorarlberg and just over a third in Burgenland. In Lower Austria, Salzburg, Carinthia and Styria, roughly a quarter of children were enrolled in full-day schools, while in Upper Austria it was one fifth, and in Tyrol, only one in six.