By EUDO CITIZENSHIP expert, Gerd Valchars
Austrian academics have recently criticized the country’s naturalisation test and official preparation material as faulty and incorrect. Historian Ernst Bruckmüller (University of Vienna) argues the preparatory script misdates several historic events and presents facts unconnected and without context. Political scientist Anton Pelinka (Central European University, Budapest) describes the preparation material as “superficial”, focusing only on the written constitution without considering the living constitution and therefore being “quite useless”.
It is not the first time since its introduction in 2006 that the Austrian naturalisation test and teaching material have been criticised. The script has been corrected several times and was finally removed from the ministry’s homepage but is still handed out as hard copy to applicants as the official preparation material. Reacting to the latest critique a spokesperson of the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced the test will be revised; a modified version will be published already this year. The multiple choice test might be canceled altogether and replaced by a “dialogue on democratic values”.
Links to relevant media reports (in German):
oe1.orf.at (radio report)
diepresse.com (2010)