Today’s big topic: The government will send a major multimillion-kroner sum to public schools
When one in five public-school teachers does not have a teaching degree, politicians are not living up to their side of the social contract, Education Minister Magnus Heunicke (S) says.
What’s happening?
Proposals for the public school system worth billions of Danish kroner were flying around when politicians, hunting for votes, campaigned about six months ago. Three months after a new government was formed, a historically poor PISA report made clear why schools urgently need political attention.
Never have Danish students performed so badly in Danish and math.
That is why four ministers, on a hectic opening day in Parliament, have gathered in a meeting room in Proviantgården. Before the rest of the national budget is presented on Friday, they want to make sure extra attention is paid to what they themselves describe as probably the biggest part of it.
In 2027, the government will boost schools by 900 million kroner. Of that, 500 million is to go to a general uplift, while 200 million kroner will go toward an effort at 100 selected schools where students are doing particularly poorly in Danish and math. The final 200 million kroner will be set aside for small public schools in rural areas.
Why it matters!
Right now, schools face »enormous challenges« in academic standards, says the education minister, Magnus Heunicke (Socialdemokratiet, S). The PISA report is not the only thing showing that; a range of other figures and statistics do, too. The very core is starting to crumble, he warns. That is why investments in public schools are a political priority for the government.
The 900 million kroner investment is divided into three pools, but is otherwise not earmarked for specific initiatives. First, the national budget has to be negotiated politically, and then schools and municipalities also have to be involved. Still, more teachers rank very high on the government’s wish list when it comes to the general 500 million-kroner boost.
But finding more teachers is not straightforward. Right now, many teachers leave after just a few years on the job, and nearly one in five who teach in public schools does not have a teaching degree. That puts Denmark in the bottom-three group in a new OECD tally.
The government hopes that better conditions in schools can keep more teachers in the profession, and that it will also encourage more young people to study to become a teacher.
No matter where the millions are found, the four ministers acknowledge that money alone will not solve the public school system’s challenges. The PISA report has ignited a debate that also involves the influence of screens, parents’ responsibility and the teacher’s authority.
Still curious? Read the full article here.
In other news
– Only when an alert employee was about to send an invoice did they realize something was afoot.
The personal identification numbers and addresses of 8.8 million Danes were seized by what the police regard as digital burglars before anyone suspected the heist was underway. Notably, it happened over 10 days in September, and without any of the security mechanisms built into the register sounding the alarm. Only when an alert accounts clerk late Friday afternoon last week was about to send an invoice generated by the system did the authorities discover that citizens’ personal data were in the process of being stolen.
– Nearly half a million fewer people owe money to the government
There are 454,000 fewer citizens who owe money to the government, according to figures from the Danish Debt Agency. That means 687,000 people now have public-sector debt, down from more than 1.1 million in 2023. These are, for example, people who owe money to the police, municipalities, or the tax authorities. There are several reasons the number has fallen, said Søren Bork Hansen, a deputy director at the Debt Agency. »It’s due to a combination of factors: people can log in to ‘My debt overview’ and pay what they owe, but also that we can write off the debt if we have tried to collect it and the amount is small«.
– The Folketing Elects Henrik Frandsen as Speaker despite criticism
Henrik Frandsen (Moderaterne) will replace Venstre’s Søren Gade as Speaker of the Danish Parliament. A majority in Parliament decided so on Tuesday after a vote in the chamber. »I would like to thank the members of this house for electing me as Speaker of the Folketing«, Henrik Frandsen said from the rostrum. Even before Tuesday, it was clear that the government had the political backing needed to make Henrik Frandsen Speaker because one of the government’s supporting parties, Enhedslisten, continues to back him. Alternativet, also a supporting party, does not support Henrik Frandsen.
The reason is his role in a property transaction in 2019. From 2001 and for the next two decades, Henrik Frandsen received compensation for allowing a parcel of agricultural land to be converted into protected nature. The 12.4-hectare area lies along the Brøns River in southern Jutland. When he sought to sell his farm in 2019, he was granted permission after just one day of case processing at Tønder Municipality, where he had by then become mayor, to have the land cultivated again as farmland. That reportedly increased the value of the property by as much as one million kroner.
Talk of town: On Langeland, older residents are now getting their homes cleaned only every fourth week. The opening address does not change that
Parliament has opened, and even as war and crises rage abroad, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen chose to place the greatest emphasis in her speech on matters closer to home.
It is simply not good enough.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is absolutely right about that. It is not good enough that older people can get cleaning only every fourth week, but that will be the reality on Langeland starting next year. The hard-pressed island municipality earned the dubious honor of being mentioned in the prime minister’s opening address, where she spoke of the »lovely older people« on the long island who, from January, will have to get used to things getting dirty. Whether they live in Snøde, Humble, or Rudkøbing, the reality is the same: welfare services are being cut to the bone.
Not because local municipal politicians want it that way, but because the money simply doesn’t add up. Langeland had asked for an additional 115 million kroner from the pool set aside for struggling municipalities. They received, as they usually do, an extra 65 million kroner, and then the minister for the interior and the economy stopped by with an additional check for three million kroner.
They did not applaud that on Langeland. Quite the opposite. In their eyes, it was a Band-Aid on an open fracture. Deep cuts to local welfare services are still required, and that means, among other things, that a nursing home in northern Langeland will have to close. The 18 residents will be moved to the island’s other nursing homes. There will be fewer hours for children in after-school programs – and then there’s the cleaning, which will be cut sharply starting Jan 1. 2027.
Read the full story 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.