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MEDICAL

12,600 vie for 1560 medical school places

A new record has been set for applications to the three medical schools in Vienna, Graz and Innsbruck, as well as the new Medical Faculty at the University of Linz.

Published: 4 July 2014 17:10 CEST
12,600 vie for 1560 medical school places
Photo: APA/Georg Hochmuth

According to a report in the Wiener Zeitung newspaper, Friday saw the sign-up of 12,600 students for the annual entrance exam to study medicine in Austria.  Given that there are only 1560 places available, that means around a 12 percent chance of making the grade – or one in eight.

In Vienna, 6016 people are trying for 740 places, while Innsbruck is seeing 3478 applicants for only 400 places.

Graz has 360 places for 2765 applicants, and last is the new campus at Linz, which is offering 60 places to 342 candidates.

With the popularity of Austrian medical schools within the EU, quotas have been imposed that require 75 percent of the places to go to students with the Austrian 'Matura' certificate, while 20 percent are allocated to other EU countries (especially Germany), and the remaining five percent to non-EU countries.

The exam is identical across each of the four universities.  The majority of candidates are women.

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EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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