Key educational documents
Under the new agreement pursuant to Article 15a B-VG between the Federal Government and the federal states on early childhood education for the 2022/23 to 2026/27 kindergarten years, the focus is on strengthening early childhood education institutions in their role as a child’s first education institution, on supporting children’s holistic development with an emphasis on promoting language development, and on educating and caring for children in accordance with nationally coordinated, empirically supported teaching concepts, taking particular account of the child’s age and his/her individual abilities and needs.
In order to ensure that quality standards in early childhood education are as consistent as possible across Austria, standardised key educational documents have been defined nationwide. These documents must be used and implemented by the relevant early childhood education institutions.
These include the following documents (all in German only):
1) Nationwide Education Framework Plan for early childhood education institutions in Austria
This contains educational areas for high-quality teaching in early childhood education institutions.
2) Supporting language development in the transition from kindergarten to primary school
This guide forms the basis for supporting and documenting individual language-related educational processes.
This module focuses on the acquisition of basic skills to support the transition to school.
4) Living values, developing values. Helping to develop values in kindergarten
This guide focuses on teaching the basic values of Austrian society in a child-friendly form.
This contains practical guidance for child-friendly educational work when children are being looked after at home or by a childminder in the final, compulsory year of kindergarten.
Moreover, additional key documents may be drawn up during the agreement period, the use of which will also be compulsory.