The Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research has the principal responsibility for issues concerning arts education in schools. At the elementary school level, arts education in general includes music, visual arts, textile and technical design education. According to education policy guidelines for the secondary school level, individual schools are increasingly forced to define their specific school profiles through autonomous curriculum planning. Accordingly, secondary school students can choose from different arts subjects including performing arts (mainly voluntarily) or participation in school choirs or bands and music ensembles. Generally, many vocational schools (for students over 15 years) do not offer any arts education as a specific subject. However, there are individual schools with special educational curricula in this field (e.g. for music, fine arts, dance, graphics, design or fashion).
The cultural education division of KulturKontakt Austria within the OeAD (KKA/OeAD, see chapter 1.4.3) operates on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research at the interface between schools, art and culture. For many years it has developed participative educational arts projects and activities with schools and cultural institutions. KKA/OeAD sets impulses in the cultural school development, provides consulting for teachers, artists, art and cultural mediators and institutions, and financial support of up to 2 600 workshops per year as part of the programme “Dialogveranstaltungen” (Dialogue Events), Austria’s largest art education programme.