Adult education centers in Austria
The adult education centers in Austria , combined as an umbrella organization through the regional associations in the Association of Austrian Adult Education Centers, are non-profit educational institutions that stem from the bourgeois-liberal and late-Enlightenment-social reformist left popular education movement of the 19th century.
The term adult education center was coined by Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig , who founded the first institution of this kind in 1844 in the Danish South Jutland.
history
In 1887 Eduard Leisching founded the Volksbildungsverein in Margareten (today VHS polycollege - Margareten). From 1895 onwards there were “popular university lectures” at the University of Vienna , in 1897 the Vienna Urania was brought into being based on the Berlin model , with a special focus on the popular teaching of natural sciences and especially astronomy. It has been at its current location since 1910, with its own observatory.
On February 24, 1901, the “Volksheim” association was set up in the Ronacher ballroom with the aim of establishing an adult education center in Vienna . On behalf of the proponents, Docent Dr. Ludo Hartmann through the assembly, at the end of which the formal association was formed, the board was authorized to rent and set up a suitable local as a “people's home” .
The people's home Ottakring , founded in 1901 , also provided popular education, politically more left-wing (compared to bourgeois Urania). The term adult education center was still forbidden in the Danube Monarchy.
On November 5, 1905, the association-based “Volkshochschule Wien Volksheim ” moved from its temporary cellar at Urban-Loritz-Platz 1 to its building at Ludo-Hartmann-Platz 7 in Ottakring . This first donation-financed adult education center in Austria was designed by the architects of Franz Ritter v. Neumann Jr. , Ludwig Faigl and Ottokar Sterin.
At that time, financial involvement in popular education was largely the responsibility of well-meaning patrons - bankers and industrialists, including the Rothschild family, paid a large part of the construction costs. The initiator was the historian Ludo Moritz Hartmann . The Volksheim Ottakring was followed by the building of the Wiener Volksbildungsverein in Stöbergasse, built between 1909 and 1911, the forerunner of today's VHS polycollege Margareten.
After 1918, numerous other popular education associations were founded, also in the federal states, often on the initiative of the trade unions . After the Second World War there was another wave of founding. The Volkshochschule Tirol was founded in autumn 1945 as a non-partisan association "Volkshochschule Innsbruck" (since 1982 "Volkshochschule Tirol"). The purpose of the association was to provide popular education in the sense of the Austrian democratic state idea. The Volkshochschule Salzburg (1947) also dates from this period of departure. It was brought into being by the City and State of Salzburg , the Chamber of Commerce , the Chamber of Labor , the Trade Union Federation and the Salzburg Cultural Association .
The organization of adult education centers after 1945 was subject to various changes. In Vienna, for example, district adult education centers were founded on a club basis, with the Association of Viennese Adult Education founded in 1949 as the umbrella organization. One year later, in 1950, the Association of Austrian Adult Education Centers (VÖV) was founded as an umbrella organization with Wolfgang Speiser as the first general secretary.
After a major structural reform in 2008, the VHS associations in Vienna - under the management of Wolfgang Bandhauer and his successor Mario Rieder - were merged into Die Wiener Volkshochschulen GmbH (VHS Wien), a non-profit company owned by the Association of Wiener Volksbildung and the City of Vienna and reorganized. A number of specialized institutions still work in Vienna as part of the adult education center, such as the Vienna Planetarium or the Vienna environmental consultancy.
President of the Association of Austrian Adult Education Centers
- until 1957 Josef Lehrl (1894–1957)
- 1958–1976 Richard Kerschagl (1896–1976)
General secretaries of the Association of Austrian Adult Education Centers
- 1950–1974 Wolfgang Speiser
criticism
The Addendum research platform examined the educational offerings of the VHS and found that parts of the offerings contradicted the scientific standards made by the VHS. It is particularly criticized that some of these courses concern esoteric and alternative medical pseudosciences, for which promises of salvation are even given in the course description. Some of the courses (such as workshops for children, where some of the essential oils used can cause allergies) can even be dangerous for individual groups of people.
The Vienna VHS regional association is criticized for the fact that the costs are exorbitantly high compared to the other regional associations. In 2018, the basic funding in Vienna amounted to EUR 21.9 million, while the second largest funding recipient, the Upper Austrian Regional Association, only received EUR 536,000. Due to the close proximity of the decision-makers of the Viennese regional association to the SPÖ (18 of the 24 management and board positions are assigned to the SPÖ), conflicts of interest are feared.
The economic conduct of the Vienna Regional Association is also cause for astonishment: Personnel costs amounted to EUR 38 million in 2018, an increase of 46% since 2012. During the same period, the number of VHS employees also increased by around 60%. At the same time, the number of visitors to the VHS courses (with around 130,000 participants) remained more or less constant during this period. The VHS Vienna has had a consistently negative result since 2008.
Adult education centers in Austria
There are currently 272 adult education centers in Austria .
According to statistics, 46,847 courses with 493,781 participants were counted in the 2011/12 working year. 919,133 teaching units were offered at Austrian adult education centers. The proportion of women among the course participants was 74.8%.
The adult education center thus takes on an important position in Austrian adult education. The year with the most course participation since 1950 was the 1999/2000 working year (= 504,150 participants).
Burgenland
Carinthia
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Lower Austria
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Upper Austria
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Salzburg
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Styria
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Tyrol
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Vorarlberg
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ViennaThe Wiener Volkshochschulen GmbH (VHS Vienna) with
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Specialized institutions of the VHS Vienna:
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literature
- Ludo Moritz Hartmann: About adult education centers, presented on March 23, 1901. Vienna 1901.
- Marie Eugenie Delle Grazie: People's home. Publishing house of the association “Volksheim”, Vienna 1906.
- Report of the Volksheim association in Vienna on its activities. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1909.
- Ludo Moritz Hartmann: The adult education system (its practice and development based on experience in the Viennese adult education system). Flyer on culture of expression, Volume 66, Callwey, Munich [u. a.] 1910.
- Community College. Journal for higher education. German printing association, Graz 1917.
- Communications from the Volkshochschule Wien, Volksheim. Sulm, Vienna 1928.
- 1905-1955. Half a century of Volksheim. A commemorative publication for November 5, 1955 (50 years of Volksheim in-house. 1905–1955). Association of Volkshochschule Wien Volksheim, Vienna 1955.
- Wilhelm Bründl: Character and Development of the Vienna Adult Education Centers. 2nd Edition. (= Writings on popular education. Volume 1). Federal Ministry of Education, Vienna 1962.
- Festschrift on the occasion of the grand opening of the renovated building of the Volkshochschule Brigittenau on September 19, 1964 by the Mayor of Vienna, Franz Jonas. Self-published, Vienna 1964.
- Mission, nature and position of the adult education center in Austria. [New version 1966], The Austrian Adult Education Center, No. 61, Association of Austrian Adult Education Centers, Vienna 1966.
- Hans Fellinger : On the development history of the Viennese popular education. In: On Viennese national education. Verlag Jugend & Volk, Vienna / Munich 1969.
- Wilhelm Filla: Education for everyone. Festschrift 35 years of the Association of Austrian Adult Education Centers. (= Series of publications by the Association of Austrian Adult Education Centers. Volume 5). Grasl, Baden 1985, ISBN 3-85098-167-3 .
- Kurt Aufderklamm (Ed.): Unity in diversity. Situation and perspectives of the adult education centers. Grasl, Vienna / Baden 1987, ISBN 3-85098-178-9 .
- Wilhelm Filla: Adult Education Work in Austria - Second Republic. A search for clues. Leykam, Graz 1991, ISBN 3-7011-7242-0 .
- Wilhelm Filla (Ed.): Adult Education from 1848 to 1900. Österreichischer Studienverlag, Innsbruck / Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-7065-1268-8 .
Individual evidence
- ^ An adult education center in Vienna. Neue Freie Presse, Abendblatt, February 25, 1901, p. 2, bottom right anno.onb.ac.at
- ↑ Adult Education Centers - Lifelong Learning? In: addendum.org. Retrieved June 14, 2019 .
- ^ The red network of Viennese public education. June 12, 2019, accessed June 14, 2019 .
- ↑ Volkshochschulen performance report 2013 (for the AJ 2011/12) adulteducation.at
- ↑ Permalink Austrian Library Association
- ↑ Online at ANNO
- ↑ Catalog list Austrian National Library
- ↑ Permalink Austrian Library Association
- ↑ Catalog list Austrian National Library
- ↑ Catalog list Austrian National Library
- ↑ Catalog list Austrian National Library
- ↑ Permalink Austrian Library Association
- ↑ Catalog list Austrian National Library
- ↑ Catalog list Austrian National Library
- ↑ Permalink Austrian Library Association
