A petition against the reduction in the number of hours of Greek and Latin teaching in Austria is currently circulating. It can be signed at https://mein.aufstehn.at/petitions/latein-ist-kein-luxus-es-ist-bildung. The petition's initiators are asking for support and publicity from other countries. The planned cuts will also affect modern foreign languages, and could jeopardise entire educational programmes in schools that have already reduced teaching hours.
The translated petition reads as follows:
Dear Federal Minister Wiederkehr,
We are concerned about the growing signs of further marginalization of the so-called “dead” languages Latin and Ancient Greek in school curricula, as well as the dismantling of literature classes in favor of supposedly competence-oriented text types, which has been going on for years.
Based on our education and knowledge, we are convinced that a humanistic education, which provides insight into thousands of years of intellectual history, makes an indispensable contribution to the development of mature, independent-minded citizens. This applies at least to the same extent to literature, which has lost its importance in school curricula since the turn of the millennium.
Our request, which can also be understood as a demand, is therefore as follows: The teaching of the classical languages Latin and Ancient Greek should be continued without restriction. The proposed eight (instead of the previous twelve) Latin lessons are definitely not sufficient for a serious acquisition of the subject. And it seems absurd that Austria, a country of culture, is systematically removing literature from the consciousness. Therefore, it should be given its rightful place in the curriculum again.
We kindly ask that this be taken into consideration in the context of the upcoming reforms.
