The number of nursing schools is to be almost doubled in the next two years. There are currently 16 locations, but currently only as school trials. These will be transferred to regular school operations from the coming school year. In addition, ten locations will be added in the new school year and more in the 2024/25 school year, so that a total of 30 school locations will be available, Education Minister Martin Polaschek (ÖVP) announced on Saturday in the Ö1 “Morgenjournal”.
A total of 350 million euros by 2026
A total of 350 million euros are to be invested in this by 2026. According to Polaschek, 8,000 training places will be available when the facility is fully developed. There are now two new school types for nursing. In addition to the three-year technical school for social professions with nursing preparation, there is also the five-year college for nursing and social care, which concludes with the Matura and nursing assistant.
FPÖ women’s spokeswoman Rose Ecker finds the expansion of nursing schools basically positive, but for her it’s just “a drop in the bucket”. In the short term there will be no more graduates, she pointed out in a broadcast. In her opinion, there is also a need for “urgently efficient and future-proof measures to, on the one hand, retain the nursing staff currently working and, on the other hand, a promising offensive is absolutely necessary to be able to win people who have worked in nursing back to the nursing profession.”
