“Healthy Apprentice”: Health Literacy for Vocational Schools

The Bad News First: According to Statistics Austria, apprentices tend to suffer from health issues for many more years than those with higher educational qualifications. The Good News? Three sports scientists—Bernhard Bayer, Alexander Schaar-Christen, and Roland Stegmüller—are tackling this problem with their initiative, Healthy Apprentice.

A digital platform, launched in October and available free of charge to all vocational schools in Austria, offers videos featuring health tips on nutrition, physical activity, and mental fitness, as well as exercises for both mental and physical well-being. This platform seamlessly combines theory and practice. The three founders from Salzburg aim to reach all apprentices in Austria—approximately 110,000 vocational school students!

For three years, they collaborated with pilot schools to develop the platform. “The goal is to enable educators to act as multipliers in vocational school classrooms and address the topic of health,” says Bernhard. Teachers can easily register on the website and form internal health teams with their colleagues. Through digital onboarding, they learn how to best integrate the exercises into the school routine.

“Like Brushing Your Teeth Every Day”

The primary focus is on building skills so apprentices can take charge of their own health: “It’s like brushing your teeth daily—the more often they practice, the more it becomes a habit.” The ten-minute physical breaks enhance not only flexibility, coordination, and body awareness but also students’ focus. A random generator selects ten new exercises each time, all designed to strengthen or stretch the upper and lower back muscles. “This keeps the muscles active, ensuring the body doesn’t forget to use them. The more they’re engaged, the more integral they become to the body’s function.”

Mental breaks, on the other hand, are based on relaxation techniques such as the 4-6 breathing method (inhale for four seconds, exhale for six). These exercises, lasting three, five, or ten minutes, can be used by educators before tests or exams—or whenever stress levels in the classroom rise and a moment of calm is needed.

The Smiley Challenge

To motivate students to focus on health daily, the platform incorporates a gamification element: with every exercise, classes and schools earn Smileys. These can be viewed online in real-time as a live score after each exercise. Through the Smiley Challenge, schools can compete with one another, aiming to earn a gold certificate by the end of the school year. Within schools, classes can also challenge each other, reinforcing daily health breaks.

Supported by the Fonds Gesundes Österreich, the Austrian Ministry of Arts, Culture, Public Service, and Sports, and the Salzburg Health Promotion Fund, Healthy Apprentice appears to be on track to spark a movement—ensuring that apprentices, equipped with a new sense of mental and physical health, no longer lag behind anyone.

Short Interview:

Currently, the initiative is only for apprentices. Are there plans for expansion?

We all started our careers as apprentices, so we have a deep understanding of what’s needed in this area. That’s why we’re particularly committed to apprentice health. However, we are indeed planning to adapt the concept for other types of schools in the future. That’s definitely a mid-term goal for us.

What are you focusing on aside from Healthy Apprentice?

With our company OUTWORX, we’ve developed a digital video platform for cities and municipalities—the QR TRAINER. This platform also promotes healthy breaks with breathing meditations, mindfulness exercises, or fitness programs. For example, the city of Linz already offers the QR TRAINER to its residents: signs with QR codes in public parks direct users to the platform and exercises. Alongside Healthy Apprentice, this is one of our largest projects.