Colleges, add-on courses, post-secondary courses in VET, schools

Educational objectives

In addition to sound general education, schools and colleges of management and services industries provide an intensive technical and vocational training in subject-related practical, theoretical and business-oriented subjects. Students develop thinking patterns as well as working and decision-making skills which they can apply and put into practice directly in careers in the services and public sectors — also in the field of health and social services — as well as in the tourism and catering industries.
Further essential objectives include: personal growth and development, capacity for professional mobility and flexibility, creativity, critical awareness, social involvement, teamwork, co-operation skills, and communicative skills in both mother tongue and other languages.
The five-year colleges and the three-year add-on courses also provide university entrance qualifications.

Educational content

Schools and colleges of management and services industries convey contents of the following subject areas: religious education; language and communication; the human sciences; the arts; the nature! sciences; the economic, political and legal spheres; information management; the food, catering and hotel business; physical education; and the add-on training field selected autonomously by the school (with a choice between the focus on foreign languages, IT, subject-specific theory, and arts and creativity).
The curricula of the colleges and post-secondary VET-courses additionally provide for mandatory work-placements of a total of 12 and 8 weeks respectively.

Career opportunities for graduates

Graduates start careers in fields of activity of various branches of the tourist and catering industries, in administration and the services and public sectors — also in the field of health and social services — on the administrative, clerical and management levels, e.g. as managers of communal kitchens and canteens, dieticians, specialists for kitchen and service, purchasers for the hotel and restaurant industry, hotel merchants, office workers, account executives, etc.
Pursuit of regulated professions on a self-employed basis:
Relevant occupations with proof of professional practice: hotel and catering industry.
Due to the liberalisation of the Trade, Commerce and Industry Regulation Act, access to nearly all master craftsperson and professional diploma examinations is possible provided the general conditions for exercising a craft or trade and for the completion of practical periods, if appropriate, are satisfied.

Additional VET offers

In addition, individual locations offer the following VET programmes (partly in the form of school pilot projects): cultural administration and congress management; environment and business; social management; communications and media design; catering and sales management; health and fitness; additional training in sports; one- and two-year schools of management and services industries.

Specific features

At individual locations, short training courses for "junior sommelier/sommelière Austria" and "cheese connoisseur in Austria" are offered.