Education Austria Project #51030

Caritas Lerncafe - Free learning support

by Caritas Austria

Caritas Lerncafe - Free learning support

Project Report | Sep 29, 2021
What makes the Lerncafes special in Austria?

By Andreas Jagersberger | Philanthropy & Partnerships

Lerncafe reading corner

The Lerncafés (learning cafés) basically offer free learning support and afternoon care to students with and without a migration background aged 6-15 years, who come from educationally and socially disadvantaged backgrounds. The multi-professional teams enable the children and adolescents to achieve visible learning successes, strengthen their knowledge of German and their reading skills, and enjoy learning through a situation- and child-specific setting as well as through targeted learning assistance with homework and preparation for schoolwork/tests. In addition, children and adolescents experience support in their personal development and learn to deal with different cultures and religions in an appreciative manner.

Through an individual-oriented and flexible offer as well as through the stable structure (same quality standards for all learning cafés), ideal framework conditions are created to enable optimal learning support, improvement of social competencies as well as empowerment and strengthening of the children's potentials. Workshops with thematic focuses and various activities and excursions additionally promote social skills.

Lerncafés during summer break

During school’s summer break (July-August), the Lerncafés summer program offers optimal preparation for the start of school for its students. The refreshment weeks (usually 2 weeks before the start of school) aim to repeat the learning material, to compensate for learning deficits and to motivate and strengthen the children for the new school year. Since many of the supported students come from a financially disadvantaged background, the Lerncafés – especially during the summer program – enable participation in social life: As part of the learning café, they get the chance to e.g. go to the museum, learn new sports in the summer program or can often try out an instrument for the first time (some LCs have cooperation with music schools, for example).

What does the Lerncafé support mean for children

Chakib (name changed to protect the client), a 15-year-old boy, originally from Iraq, lives in Austria for over three years and attends the 4th grade of an NMS school (New Middle School) as well as a Lerncafé in Vienna. He speaks English very well, but still had difficulties in German. Therefore, Chakib had to repeat the last school year. He is very interested in mathematics and physics. Unfortunately, he is not always able to prove his abilities in those subjects – because for example in mathematics he often simply fails to understand the information given in German, although he could actually solve the tasks from a mathematical point of view.

Nevertheless, Chakib was always very motivated and wanted to attend a secondary school. When he unfortunately received a negative grade on his mid-year report card in German in February 2021, he was initially very frustrated, since that one grade meant that he would not be able to apply to a secondary school.

But Chakib and the dedicated Lerncafé team persistently searched for ways to enable him to go to a secondary school. And it paid off. After a long search, together they found a secondary school for economic professions (HLW) including a transition class, where he could register despite the negative grade and then transfer with a positive annual report. In the second half of the schooling year, Chakib worked extremely hard and prepared very well during the Lerncafé sessions, especially for tests. On the day before his German school test, he even called the Lerncafé teacher he was working with in the evening and went over several discussion topics again. The effort was definitely worth it, because he wrote an excellent essay, considering his knowledge of German, and thus secured the positive grade. In addition, he presented an excellent German paper, for which he even received a grade of 1 and was able to move on to the secondary school for economic professions.

Lerncafés in numbers:

62 Lerncafé locations throughout Austria
Lerncafés currently support 2,000 children – still more than 1,000 children Austrian-wide are waiting for an open place at a Lerncafé
96% of the children were able to complete the school year positively due to the support of the Lerncafé
94% of the students have a migration background
The gender ratio is 50% girls and 50% boys
Almost 700 children and young people participated in the 2021 summer program
There have been about 18,000 parent contacts per year (Austria-wide) in recent years

Lerncafe summer program

Lerncafe Vocklabruck

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Jun 1, 2021
Covid-19 and the impact on the Caritas Lerncafes

By Andreas Jagersberger | Philanthropy & Partnerships

Remote support at the Lerncafes (c)Caritas

Like all educational institutions, the Caritas Lerncafés had to close down during the lockdown measures in Austria most of the time during 2020 as well as the beginning of 2021. Physical learning with the children and young people was not possible over most of the time. However, the staff and volunteers of the Lerncafés quickly adapted and found alternatives in order to stay close to the students despite social distancing measures. The clear goal was to continue the support for children and adolescents facing absolute unprecedented times.

The dedicated Lerncafé colleagues were available to the children and parents at all times by phone, email or other digital media tools (e.g. Zoom, etc.). Some Lerncafés have arranged fixed learning appointments with the children by phone and were in regular contact to solve learning tasks together and to work out new learning methods. The telephone was an important communication tool, as not all children had a laptop or an internet connection and therefore found it particularly difficult to cope with the demands of home schooling. Some Lerncafés also created support folders for sensory perception training, as this area should also continue to be supported in addition to the school requirements.

Beautiful successes in challenging times

In 2020 about 2000 children and adolescents were supported at 56 Caritas Lerncafés all over Austria. Despite all the challenges with school closures and home schooling, remote support for the Lerncafé kids proved to be highly successful – and welcomed by our students. In total 96% of the Lerncafé participants successfully completed the respective school level and could advance to the next class. More than 950 volunteers supported the employees at the Caritas Lerncafés.

How big the demand for such free learning support really is in Austria can be seen on the waiting list for free Lerncafé places. Currently almost 1000 children and youth are desperately waiting to receive learning support within the Caritas Lerncafés.

What does the Lerncafé support mean for children

An 11-year-old Syrian girl has been in Austria for about a year. She attends grade 1 of a NMS (new middle school) and has been in a Lerncafé in St. Pölten since spring 2020. The language barriers of the child and the parents were very big at the beginning. The parents described the girl as very inquisitive and as one who learns very easily. As the girl had very little German language at the beginning, the team hoped that they could help her in the Lerncafés and that the communication between the learning facilitators and the child would be reasonably successful. To achieve that the Lerncafé included a trained DAF teacher (DAF = Deutsch als Fremdsprache; German as foreign language) as a volunteer who was able to support the child well in her learning. They not only worked intensively on homework together, but also went through certain DAF topics week by week. The volunteer even took private practice utensils for the girl to the learning café. The girl was extremely inquisitive, very motivated and ambitious - she often asked questions and always made sure she did the tasks correctly. She talked a lot with the Lerncafé team and the children and also regularly asked them if she was pronouncing words correctly, what article the noun had and what certain things were called. She often emphasized that she would like to speak even better German and constantly asked for practice sheets for home. Thanks to the great commitment of the volunteers and the ambition of the child, immense learning progress was quickly achieved. In the meantime, she can conjugate verbs in all tenses – after almost not being able to communicate in German at all one year ago. The girl's parents are also very eager to learn German quickly and well and are very grateful for the support in the Lerncafé.

Remote support at the Lerncafes (c)Caritas

Covid measures at the Lerncafe (c)Caritas

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