When I was appointed head of the Institute for Business Education at WU Wien in 2005 after 10 years of professional activity in Germany, where I was head of Business Education chairs at the universities of Cologne and Nuremberg, I faced the reality that at that time the restructuring of the master's degree programs (then known as Magisterstudien/Diplomstudien) at WU Wien into the "Bologna architecture" (bachelor, master's degree) had largely been completed. Hence it was necessary to develop and implement a proper Business Education master's program within a short period of time and also to broaden the profile of the chair. As there were only Business Education master's programs (in the sense of Magisterstudium) in Austria at that time, new curricular ground had to be broken. The most important key points/considerations of the reform can be summarized as follows:

• Integration of the practical phase into the degree program in the sense of a single-phase training (therefore five instead of four semesters - graduation with "teaching qualification"). No one- to two-year traineeship at the end of the degree program as in Germany, i.e. no two-phase training.

• Graduation with a Master of Science (not a Master in Education) to ensure compatibility with WU degrees and to promote polyvalence (professional employment options beyond schools).

• Adding a "Business Eduation flavor" to the bachelor's degree program by offering the specialization "Business Training & Education Management".

• Establishing a Business Education degree program for working professionals ("career changer offer") for the whole of Austria.

• Initiation of annual Business Education Conventions - alternating at all four BE locations in Austria - to institutionalize a disciplinary scientific discourse as well as the organization of Conventions for Didactics of Business Education at the Vienna location every two years to promote a practical dialogue with BMHS teachers.

• Realization of EU educational cooperation projects with other EU member states to promote economic education in transition countries (Bulgaria, Russia, Central Asia, etc.).

• Emphasis on subject-specific didactics in the master's program - no other Business Education program in the German-speaking world places such a high value on subject-matter (economics and business) related methods (= USP of the BE location Vienna).

• Curricular incorporation of economics in the BE master's program (core subject and free elective) because this subject contributes significantly to addressing ethical, ecological and economic policy issues and is able to make a significant contribution to reflection and education.

Of course, such comprehensive structural, curricular and content-related reforms can only be realized in a team - I would like to thank my former colleagues (once again) for their loyal and dedicated support. My actions are based on a basic pedagogical understanding which the German pedagogue Hartmut von Hentig summarizes as follows:

Josef Aff, September 2, 2024

Wilfried Schneider was head of the Institute for Business Education from 1971 to 2004. He succeeded Hans Krasensky, who had been the first to develop Business Education approaches in Austria.

Wilfried Schneider habilitated in 1970 with a habilitation treatise on programmed and computer-assisted teaching. In a revised edition (Facultas publishing house), the work has been available again since 2016. Around 1972, Wilfried Schneider founded the Austrian Teaching Machine Laboratory, in which predecessor models for computer-assisted teaching were developed and tested.

His didactic model is based on cognitive psychology (cf. e.g. J.R. Anderson). With the help of well-structured texts that are tailored to the students' learning prerequisites and enhanced with realistic/lifelike examples, complex tasks are to be solved in individual and group work. Detailed feedback from textmaterial, classmates or teachers should promote cognition. This means that the focus does not lie on independent acquisition of information, but on the preferably independent complex application and feedback.

This model was also the basis for the various textbook series for BMHS in Austria which were largely written and completely edited by Wilfried Schneider himself. The textbooks achieved a market share of up to 80 % and a total circulation of around three million.

Around 1995, Wilfried Schneider was entrusted by the rector to develop the concept for the Social Skills program at WU Wien. He contributed also some of the textbook material himself. In 2022, the texts were republished by Facultas, edited by his successor Bettina Greimel-Fuhrmann.

Around the year 2000, one of the last projects was an attempt to standardize the basic study content of the first two semesters at WU Wien in order to create a common body of knowledge for the following semesters. Learning material, case studies and control tasks were provided online. Wilfried Schneider was responsible for the didactic structure and computer scientist Gustav Neumann for the computer-aided component. The work was not continued after the introduction of the bachelor's and master's degree programs.

"To the dismay of the university management", Wilfried Schneider was also involved in the introduction of Fachhochschulen in Austria. He developed concepts for the first Fachhochschule in Wiener Neustadt (1994) and finally for the Ferdinand Porsche Fernfachhochschule (2007), to this day the only accredited and budget-supported Fernfachhochschule in Austria.

Wilfried Schneider, September 3, 2024

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