If you follow any educational or even national news you will have heard that in Aarhus almost all schools have rejected the government’s latest financial packages. The difficulty is simple, the income doesn’t match the outgoings and the unions have negotiated increases for teachers which the government are not covering.
The government are trying to cover the gap by reducing school hours, limiting exams in the Danish system and basically removing assessment across the primary schools. The OECD wants to see less young people staying in long term education and loans instead of handouts to students. All of this is to help balance the books for the future of an older populace and less tax paying workers in the system.
Like many countries Denmark’s challenges are financial, although with a national financial surplus Denmark’s educational system doesn’t help by slowing down the influx of workers to the workforce.
Reducing the workday in schools wont help but maybe reducing the length of years in school and higher education will. An idea which you may see coming to the fore in Denmark.