!!!Frauenberufliche Lehranstalten

Vocational Schools for Women: The beginnings of institutional 
vocational training for girls goes back to the educational 
institutions of the Catholic women's orders (e.g. Ursulines, English 
Ladies, School Sisters) in the 17%%sup th/%  century. In 1775 the 
state established an educational facility for the daughters of army 
officers and in 1786 a separate civilian boarding school for girls. 
Industrial schools also played an important role in the education of 
women. It was not until the 1860s that girls had access to a broader 
spectrum of educational and occupational choice; this came about as a 
parallel development to the notion of equality established in the Law 
governing Basic Civil Rights of 1867.

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Education for girls focused primarily on the area of the home (cooking 
schools, schools for housekeeping, and home economics), and, schools 
also began to instruct women in needlework. The Austrian government 
established schools for women's commercial occupations (e.g. 
needle-point school in Vienna in 1874; lace-making course in Vienna in 
1879; vocational school for machine embroidery in Dornbirn in 1891; 
central educational institute for women's occupations in Vienna in 
1910). In Vienna alone there were more than 200 private schools for 
underwear and bedlinen sewing, clothing, millinery and corset-making 
in 1910.

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In the First Republic the schools for women's occupations were 
reorganised, and different levels were created: colleges for women's 
commercial occupations (three-year programme), schools for women's 
occupations (two-year programme) and cooking and house-keeping schools 
(one-year programme).

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Educational facilities for women's occupations have been under the 
jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry of Education since 1945; the 
School Act of 1962 was a further step in the restructuring process 
(five-year upper-level educational facilities, three-to-four-year 
vocational schools, two-year home economics schools, one-year home 
economics schools). When the system of coeducation was introduced in 
1975, educational facilities for women's occupations were opened to 
boys; only a small percentage of boys (less than 1 %) take advantage 
of these facilities. In 1987 gender-specific designations for schools 
were generally abolished by equal rights legislation; however the 
curricula were changed only minimally. The term "educational 
facilities for women's occupations" has become outdated.


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