polis – The Austrian Centre for Citizenship Education in Schools is the central education service institution for citizenship education in schools. The centre helps teachers to bring citizenship and human rights education into the classroom, serves as an information platform and advisory centre, develops new materials for the classroom on a regular basis, plays a part in the European and Austrian discussions on citizenship education, has an influential role in teacher training and organizes events for students.

With the activities on offer polis supports skills-oriented teaching, the aim of which is a political awareness which the student has reached through careful deliberation. In this respect it is not primarily a question of the acquisition of the broadest possible range of knowledge, but of learning activities which enable the student to learn about, think about and deal with political themes. The activities are therefore linked to the lives and experiences of the students themselves.