>>17602151German here so what I'm gonna say might not apply 100% to the Austrian school system but from what I know they supposed to be pretty similar.
Germany and Austria both have something called "Gegliedertes Schulsystem" which would literally translate to "structured school system" but basically means that after elementary school i.e. 4th grade, students are separated into different types of secondary schools depending on their academic ability.
The different types of schools are basically supposed to set up the students for different kinds of jobs in the future.
The "Gymnasium" is supposed to prepare you for an academic path i.e. University.
In Germany we have two other school types called Realschule and Hauptschule.
The "real school" is supposed to set you up with a more practical knowledge for trade jobs and mainschool is for the rest. i.e. unskilled labor.
Apparently they don't have Realschule in Austria, but I presume that their Hauptschule is what a mix of german Realschule and Hautpschule would be.
Either way It's a horribly antiquated and fucked up system and what type gets recommended for a student is as much a function of the social status of their family as their academic ability in 4th grade.
Aside from that it also usually means that the lower school types are generally shittier, not just because the students are on average dumber and of more troubled backgrounds but also because of less public funding.
The system isn't quite as rigid as I made it sound. There are ways to attend university without having attended a Gymnasium and there are ways to move from one type of school to another type, both up and down. Gymnasiums also aren't always strictly better (aside from the higher expectations) than realschule and hauptschule, but the point stands.
That school Kiara was talking about was Hauptschule, and sounds like a quite typical Hautpschule at that. And by typical I mean really fucking shitty.
