Today’s big topic: School absenteeism is rising – now a new model is meant to step in earlier
The investment program 'Together for Less School Absenteeism' will work with municipalities to prevent distress and disengagement before it turns into serious absenteeism.
What’s happening?
School absenteeism is a growing problem in Denmark. One in five students has more than 10 percent absence, the equivalent of more than 20 school days a year. In Frederikssund Municipality, it is one in three. At the same time, many schools say they lack a systematic, consistent way to address troubling patterns of absence.
A new, wide-ranging initiative is intended to change that. Den Sociale Investeringsfond (The Social Investment Fund) and Alm. Brand Foreningen are investing 30 million kroner over five years in four municipalities, including Frederikssund, to strengthen early intervention against school absenteeism.
The effort is based on a prevention model that must be tested and documented in practice before the experience is potentially rolled out nationwide.
Why it matters!
Beyond the human toll, school absenteeism also comes with a high price tag. Last year, costs related to lost earnings, among other things due to absence, totaled 2.5 billion kroner. Worrying school absenteeism occurs at every grade level, but it grows particularly in the older grades.
Camilla Bjerre Damgaard, executive director of Den Sociale Investeringsfond, points out that school absenteeism is often handled very differently from one municipality to another.
»There has been a lack of structure in the work on school absenteeism, and the child’s and parents’ voices have often been missing. We’re looking for solutions that both strengthen well-being and provide a clearer overview and better options for action«, she says.
She adds that the fund is investing in solutions that make it possible to work in a data-driven, systematic way to detect the earliest signs of distress. The ambition is to create change across the country.
Still curious? Read the full article here.
In other news
– Thousands of Danes are scammed online every year
About 37,000 Danes reported being targeted by contact fraud in 2024, up from 27,000 in 2023. In these cases, the victim transfers money to a scammer they have come into contact with via, for example, email, social media, or dating sites. Victims of contact fraudsuffer the greatest financial losses. On average, they report losing 13,500 kroner-
Still, this story about a seasoned investor and executive who, until quite recently, was swindled out of more than 1.5 million kroner in total is unusual. Read the full story here.
– Oversight of pig farms is in disarray
Rigsrevisionen (Denmark’s National Audit Office) criticizes the authorities for failing to crack down on tail docking, disconnected shower systems, and breeding practices that lead to 10 million pigs dying each year. In a new 47-page report, the National Audit Office calls the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration’s inspections »highly unsatisfactory«, while its verdict on the Agency for Green Area Conversion, which oversees pig producers receiving EU subsidies, lands on the slightly less severe »unsatisfactory«.
– Denmark is the worst in the nordics at using condoms
That is the finding of the annual survey ’Kondomtjek’ by the Swedish condom company and sex-education organization RFSU, as Sex & Samfund state in a press release. Overall, 37 percent of Danes in the target group aged 16 to 65 say they have used a condom in the past year. That is the lowest level in several years and the lowest among the Nordic countries..
– Did Denmark cover up the Nord Stream sabotage case?
Danish authorities likely knew that Ukrainians could be behind the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. And they »covered up« the case because they did not want a »geopolitical crisis«. That is the conclusion of the journalist Bojan Pancevski of the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal in an interview with Berlingske on the occasion of his new book about the sabotage of the gas pipeline. The controversial pipeline was meant to carry gas from Russia to Germany. But in September 2022, it was blown apart in four places on the seabed not far from Bornholm.
Talk of town: A new Danish museum is quite a sensation
The first part of Museum Wegner is laid out like a classic Danish home, where visitors move through living rooms and bedrooms.
The old desk is well worn.
In the tabletop, you can see the marks from thousands of pushpins that once held drawing paper in place. Large rings from cups and glasses reveal that countless hours have been spent at the table.
It’s a simple wooden table with legs that fold up, like a wallpapering table. The desk chair has armrests, and the backrest is upholstered in light leather that has darkened with years of use.
It’s the workplace of the furniture designer Hans J. Wegner I’m standing here looking at.
The desk and chair sit on a low platform, and you’d better keep your hands to yourself. Not because the table is especially valuable, even if it was, of course, designed by Wegner – like the chair, originally made for Aarhus City Hall – but because this is where it all begins: the armchairs, coffee tables, shelving, beds, cabinets, tray tables, rocking chairs, and lamps.
A visit to Museum Wegner could easily begin at this table, but it actually starts in a living room. Followed by a dining room, a children’s room, and a bedroom. Because it was for everyday life that Wegner designed his furniture. For the homes of ordinary people.
That is why it makes perfect sense that Museum Wegner opens its exhibition as a private home, where you can look at a shelving system, a sofa, several armchairs, children’s furniture, wardrobes, and much more that sprang from Wegner’s brilliant mind.
Read the full review of Museum Wegner here.
This newsletter features stories originally published in Danish. AI was used to shorten and translate the articles into English, after which a member of the editorial staff reviewed and refined the content.