29. 04. 09. - 13:00

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29. 04. 09. - 13:00

Vienna checks German skills of Muslim teachers

By Thomas Hochwarter

Viennese school authorities are checking Muslim teachers’ German following a scandal over a Muslim teacher who handed out anti-Semitic leaflets to students.

The checks are part of a recently introduced five-point plan by Social Democrat (SPÖ) Education Minister Claudia Schmied checking teaching standards, including a directive that all Muslim teachers have to be fluent German speakers.

Vienna’s Stadtschulrat city school council said today (Weds) small language deficits were found in the checks of the capital’s 169 Islamic teachers conducted over the last few days.

Vienna authorities had a close look at eleven teachers who do not hold a German degree. Three of them were ordered to sit additional German classes while the others proved to have excellent German, it was announced.

The five-point plan was introduced after Education Minister Schmied banned a Muslim man in February from teaching his religion at a Vienna secondary school after he distributed anti-Semitic leaflets to pupils.

Schmied ordered the city’s school authorities to take action against the man who had been teaching at the Cooperative Secondary School (KMS) in Brüßlgasse in the district of Ottakring.

He reportedly distributed anti-Semitic leaflets to his students. The flyers contained a list of allegedly "Jewish" firms from which, the man told the students, they should not buy anything.

Austrian Times

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