What if my child doesn't speak German well when they start school in Austria?

In the 2025/26 school year, 8,408 of the 18,413 pupils in the first school level of Vienna’s public primary schools had so-called “extraordinary” status, meaning their German was deemed insufficient to follow regular lessons. A pupil with a MIKA-D result of mangelhaft - indicating that further German support is still needed - can move up to the next school level if the class or school conference gives a positive assessment of their likely progress. According to the Education Ministry, some things that may help foreign children with their German skills include talking to people who are native German speakers and reading books in German (but, they say, you should also read to your child in your native language because the skills acquired by reading transfer to language learning).