How did Covid-19 affect school education in Austria?

In Austria the closings of schools affected around 1.1 million students (and over 200,000 children in kindergartens). The lockdowns thus brought about an abrupt change in the education system to distance learning or home schooling. In Austria, distance teaching primarily meant establishing and maintaining contact with students through a variety of channels, developing and delivering learning. The concrete design was largely the responsibility of the teachers. 
It is assumed that learning failures do indeed have a long-term negative impact on competences, qualifications and income, and here the large differences according to the socio-economic status of the pupils become particularly visible. In relation to all students, 11% could not be reached or could only be reached with difficulty in the first school closure phase. Among disadvantaged students, this percentage rises to 35%.

Beside learning, school also performs a number of social functions that were made impossible by the lockdown. School is a place, where communication and social embedding take place. Students have missed school, the direct feedback from teachers and especially their peers during the lockdowns. The direct exchange within the class is especially important for students who can get little support at home. Support systems at schools, such as school psychologists, school social workers and external learning assistants, have also collapsed in the course of the lockdowns.

How familiar were Austrian schools with the use of digital education prior to Covid-19?

First there is – compared to other European countries - a large gap in the digitalisation of the Austrian education system in terms of Internet access at schools, usage of communication platforms, technical staff at schools and ICT skills of teachers. Only 33% of the teachers of lower-secondary reported prior to the crisis to use ICT for projects or class work “frequently” or “always”. (OECD average: 53%). 40% of the teachers reported, that ICT skills were included in their formal education or training, which is also lower than OECD average in TALIS (56%). 15% of Austrian teachers saw a high level of need for developing ICT skills for teaching. 
IT is not really anchored in the curriculum, although there have been efforts to do so since the 1980s. For the students in the age of 10-14 years, the curriculum only provides very vague guidelines for an elective subject informatics and to integrate IT in other subjects without any accountability.

How prepared were Austrian teachers to adopt digital learning methods?

The school closures in March 2020 were extremely last-minute and there was little time to prepare for the teachers. Therefore, in the first phase of school closure, teaching was still often "analogue" but at a distance - i.e. with textbooks, worksheets and work assignments. In the second lockdown, video conferencing and the establishment of exchange forums and question time among students and between students and teachers were already common. While IT facilities are not perfect in Austrian schools, 95% of the teachers reported having good ICT equipment privately.
Nevertheless, it can be concluded that distance learning in Austria still can only partially be equated with e-learning. Digital learning and teaching requires careful planning and preparation, a didactic and methodical approach - not “learning from technology, but rather, learning with technology”. Technology is a tool not the approach.

What barriers were there to Austrian pupils accessing digital learning opportunities?

Crucial resources for the success of distance learning are technical prerequisites and digital skills. The students' equipment (78% agreement) is rated slightly better than their internet connection (71% agreement). But the necessary devices are not equally distributed across the Austrian students. For around 60% of the pupils, the teachers assess the private conditions (including space and peace at home, support from parents) as good, which conversely means that 40% do not have the necessary private conditions for digital learning.

ICT skills of students are variably. Internet risk awareness (49% agreement among pupils) and audio/video recording skills (57% of teachers rate their pupils' skills in this area as good to very good) are rated as good. Competencies and self-confidence in dealing with media per se (81%), the use of search engines (70%), the use of learning platforms (71%) and scanning and emailing (84%) are rated higher. However, teachers see much greater obstacles in their adolescent students' lack of motivation (66%), distractions (71%) and difficulties in maintaining daily structure (90%) in distance learning.

Sources: 
Institute for Advanced Studies (2021): Lehren und Lernen unter Pandemiebedingungen. Was tun, damit aus der Gesundheits- nicht auch eine Bildungskrise wird? Vienna, https://irihs.ihs.ac.at/id/eprint/5873/24/ihs-report-2021-steiner-koepping-leitner-pessl-lassnigg-lehren-und-lernen-unter-pandemiebedingungen.pdf
OECD (2019), TALIS 2018 Results (Volume I): Teachers and School Leaders as Lifelong Learners, TALIS, OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/1d0bc92a-en; see also https://www.oecd.org/education/talis/talis-2018-results-volume-i-1d0bc92a-en.htm
Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung (2021): Studie Lernen unter Covid-19, https://lernencovid19.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/p_lernencovid19/Zwischenergebnisse_Schueler_innen.pdf