Danish Schools and School Administration
| Date | 01 January 1927 |
| Published date | 01 January 1927 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1927.tb02279.x |
| Author | Henrik Bertelsen |
Danish
Schools
and
School
Administration
By
HENRIK
BERTELSEN
[Rend
to
Members
of
Institute
of
Public
Administration ditring visit
to
Deniizark,
September,
19261
N
Denmark instruction is obligatory for all children from seven to
I
fourteen years of age, but each home is permitted to decide for itself
how this instruction shall be given, whether
at
home or in private schools
or in board schools.
Local boards of education, one for each municipality, see to it that
the children actually do have the instruction required by the law, and
if
necessary the law can be enforced by means of fines, but public opinion
in Denmark is
so
strong for education that it very seldom is necessary to
use drastic measures.
Of
the 470,000 children of school age in Denmark, about
1,000
only
are
taught at home.
In
State schools and in private schools there are
in all about 50,000. The great majority, about
420,000,
almost
90
per cent., attend municipal schools, corresponding to the
English
board
schools. Accordingly,
this
type of school must be considered the most
important part of the Danish school system.
The law compels each municipality to provide school teaching for
every child within its jurisdiction that wants it, and municipal schools
are found in every town and country community in Denmark.
The subjects which are taught in these schools are religion, Danish,
writing, arithmetic, history, geography, singing, drawing, sewing for
girls, and gymnastics, which, however, in the country is obligatory only
for boys. To these subjects others may be added
;
in most town schools
natural history is taught, in many sloid, and in the last classes
a
little
English or German, physics and algebra
;
also in some schools domestic
science for girls.
The school year consists of forty-one weeks, and the minimum of
hours-a school hour means fifty minutes-is an average of eighteen per
week in the country, twenty-one
in
the towns.
In
many small country schools you will find only the minimum
required, but in the towns the weekly number of lessons often will amount
to twenty-four or thirty.
On the whole the board schools in the different communities vary
46
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