My job-shadowing journal at Wien, Austria Austrian journal | Page 21

Global Education and European Teaching Strategies
2018-1-ES01-KA101-049441
c. Field excursions
Every year they plan one-week field excursions for the different
forms: Sports in winter and summer, language courses in Ireland
and the visit to Auswitz.
d. Job training
4th year students spend four days in February working for the
community. As they are responsible for finding the job and company
to do this placement, there are some lessons planned to help them
with the CV and ways to get in touch with the organisations or
companies. The local corporate association companies pays for their
insurance.
e. Matura (A-levels/ Selectivitat)
The system was quite confusing for us at the beginning and the
coordinators helped us to get the gist of it.
The official term for Matura in Austria is Reifeprüfung. The document
received after the successful completion of the written and oral
exams is called Maturazeugnis.
In the Gymnasium (AHS), which, as opposed to vocational schools,
focuses on general education, the Matura consists of 3–4 written
exams (referred to as Klausurarbeiten, four to five hours each) to be
taken on consecutive mornings (usually in May) and three to four
oral exams to be taken on the same half-day about a month later
(usually in June). All examinations are held at the school which the
candidate last attended. Candidates have the option to write a
scholarly paper (called Fachbereichsarbeit) to be submitted at the
beginning of the February preceding the final exams, which, if
accepted, reduces the number of written exams by one, as the
Fachbereichsarbeit is seen as an equivalent to a subject. This paper
also needs to be defended in the corresponding oral exam.
Compulsory subjects for the written finals are always German and
Mathematics, as well as a foreign language (usually English, French,
Spanish, Italian, Latin or sometimes Ancient Greek). Schools with a
focus on science may require their students to take written finals in
Biology or Physics. Due to the fact that all students should take the
Maths exam, they are struggling to improve the overall results.