The energy crisis is also leading to severe austerity measures in the education sector. Due to the blatant heating costs, a Viennese university is taking a measure that causes resentment.
Vienna/Munich – The cold season has arrived and the confrontation with the increased energy prices is inevitable. The education sector in Austria is also feeling the effects of this, where an extraordinary measure is now being taken to be able to cope with the heating costs due to the energy crisis.
One of the country’s largest universities is forced to close to avoid insolvency. According to Rector Sabine Seidler, there is no alternative to this step in order to enable the economic survival of the Vienna University of Technology. “The external conditions have changed drastically,” explains the native German to the ORF and lists general inflation and wage increases as other factors.
Energy crisis in Austria: Vienna University of Technology has to save on heating costs – dispute over additional demand
A few days ago, thousands of students and professors took to the streets in the capital to vent their displeasure and demand more money. Austria’s Minister of Education, Martin Polaschek, counters that the country’s universities will already receive a budget plus of 500 million euros by 2024, and that he cannot understand the demand for an increased need (allegedly 1.2 billion euros).
Seidler denies that the Vienna University of Technology may have lived beyond its means or managed poorly, instead the “external framework conditions have changed”. The additional costs of the energy crisis for the Technical University of Vienna alone would devour a calculated sum of 175 million euros in the next two years.
TU Vienna is closing due to the energy crisis – students are now learning online again
The result: Austria’s largest scientific and technical research and educational institution for students will close its doors for a month to save on heating costs. During this time, courses will take place online (“distance learning”), as was done during the corona pandemic.
The Vienna University of Technology is to be closed from December to mid-January 2023, including the Christmas holidays. According to Seidler, in the labs of the university, which caused a small sensation regarding Corona in 2021, only “those devices that cannot be turned off” would run. (PF)
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