Half of the students feel confident using technology

51 percent of school children aged 14 to 16 in Austria feel confident in handling technology. This is the result of a survey conducted by GoStudent, a tutoring company, in six countries. This puts young people in Austria slightly ahead of their peers in Germany (48 percent), but far behind peers in Spain (76 percent), Great Britain (74), Italy (67) and France (62).

For the study, about 1,000 students ages 10 to 16 and 1,000 legal guardians in the six states were surveyed in fall 2022 by opinion research institute Opinium. Qualitative interviews were also conducted with young people. For some of the assessments, only the responses of children between the ages of 14 and 16 were used.

A similar result is obtained when students aged 14-16 are asked to rate their teachers’ knowledge. In Austria, 47% of this age group rate their teachers as good at using technology and encouraging its use. In Germany it is less (40 percent), in Great Britain (64 percent) and Spain (63 percent) much more.

The majority to retain traditional themes

By the way, in all states there are the majority of students (10-16 years old) to retain traditional subjects. In Austria, only 39 percent want to replace mathematics or science with lessons on coding or the environment – this proportion is almost the same in almost all countries, only in Spain 46 percent want this new content instead of mathematics and science.

Austrian students mentioned video game programming, artificial intelligence (45 percent each), and robotics (44 percent) as content that is not currently taught in schools but that they would like to learn. Video game programming, calculated across all countries, also takes the lead (51 percent), followed by artificial intelligence (50 percent), robotics (47 percent), finance (46 percent), cryptocurrency (36 percent) and higher mathematics (27 percent). percent).

When parents are asked (supported by predetermined answers) what else should be taught in schools, environmental issues (81 percent), current affairs, personal financial planning (79 percent each), and mindfulness (77 percent) are slightly more important than technological developments such as as artificial intelligence (73 percent). percent) or coding and programming (69 percent).