Several studies show that Austria fails to offer the equal chance to achieve to pupils from different layers of the society (Marks, 2014). Unfortunately, this situation is used often as election propaganda and political parties try to introduce their own ideology driven measures, which are not sustainable and long-lasting. Private initiations like Teach for Austria announced their motivation and claimed to defeat this situation by cultivating ambitious teaching fellows. Teach for Austria (TfA) started as a private initiation in 2011 with 23 fellows with the goal of producing “change makers” for a better education in the country. In the rationale of the program, as stated in the website, the kids from disadvantaged families and immigrant families in Austria are considered as the losers of the education system (Teach for Austria, 2018), and the Austrian education system is criticized in terms of its incapability to make use of the talent and potential of people. The program facilitates the cooperation with the teachers who have years-long experience and who are volunteer to share them with the young colleagues from TfA. The program is co-funded by the European Union Erasmus+ Program. The graduates of the program can work 2 years in middle schools or in polytechnic schools in three different states of Austria, Vienna, Lower Austria, and Upper Austria and only in the selected schools. The schools are selected depending on their student profile. These schools are places that a big number of disadvantaged students with migration background and low socio-economic status attend. The paper seeks to discuss, what are the goals and selection criteria of the program? How are the ‘fellows’ trained? What sort of teaching does TfA promote? What shapes the program components? The presence of TfA in the educational discussion of the national context is also tackled in this study. The research will be based on interviews with TfA fellows, supporting teachers and directors of partner schools as well as document analysis. The paper will provide a detailed description of TfA structure and processes. On the other hand, it will highlight the reactions to the program and the criticism of key stakeholders in Austrian educational context. Findings will also be compared to university-based teacher education programs and other Teach for All programs as gleaned similar studies (e.g., Hutchings et al., 2006; Blandford, 2014; Schneider, 2014).

Blandford, S. (2014) ‘Leading through partnership: enhancing the Teach First Leadership Programme’, Teacher Development, 18(1), p. 1-14. Hutchings, M. et al. (2006) ‘An evaluation of innovative approaches to teacher training on the Teach First programme: Final report to the Training and Development Agency for Schools’, London: Institute for Policy Studies in Education, 31. Marks, W. (2014). Innowal: Teach for Austria. Retrieved from https://neuwal.com/2014/01/15/wir-wollen-dass-alle-kinder-in-oesterreich-die-chance-auf-eine-exzellente-bildung-haben-dr-walter-emberger-teach-for-austria-im-innowal/ Schneider, J. (2014) ‘Rhetoric and practice in pre-service teacher education: the case of Teach For America’, Journal of Education Policy, 29(4), pp. 425–442. doi: 10.1080/02680939.2013.825329. Teach for Austria. (2018). Warum e suns gibt? Retrieved from http://www.teachforaustria.at/warum-es-uns-gibt/