Teachers in Austria’s capital Vienna have become alarmed at the growing number of young schoolchildren observing the Muslim fasting period of Ramadan.
Thomas Krebs, head of Vienna teachers’ union APS, said in a radio interview on March 10 that more and more children in Vienna were observing the religious requirement to neither eat nor drink during daylight hours.
The trend was affecting ever younger children, he said. In some cases, six-year-olds were said to have been observing the fast, according to Krebs.
He also remarked that “pressure” within Austria’s Muslim community to observe Ramadan was increasing. The number of parents who did not accept that children were exempt from fasting was rising, as was peer pressure.
“In school classes there is massive pressure from some children who compel others to participate,” Krebs said.
The effects of hunger and thirst were negatively affecting school life and Krebs said children’s ability to concentrate decreased noticeably as the day dragged on during Ramadan.
“The kids have low blood sugar. They are tired. They fall asleep. In some cases they almost fall over”, the union representative said. “You cannot teach like that,” he concluded.
According to religious scholars, children are not supposed to observe the fast.
Tugrul Kurt, professor of Islamic Theology at the University of Vienna, told public broadcaster Ö1 that the religious requirement to fast started at the age of 12 to 14.
Kurt said it was “negligent” to demand that six-year-olds observed Ramadan.
The theologist said he saw social media platforms as the main source of the problem. “What some imams on social media are preaching is absurd,” he said.
The problem was already highly troubling, Kurt concluded, and only likely to worsen.
Maximilian Krauss, leader of the right-wing Freedom Party in Vienna’s city council, said the teachers’ plight was another sign of what he called Austria’s Islamisation.
Krauss criticised other parties in parliament, namely the Conservatives, the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the Greens, for failing to take legal steps against “Political Islam”.
This year, Ramadan started on February 28 and will end on March 30, 2025.
