Denmark’s public school reform was one of the most debated issues during the election campaign, when several parties promised major changes and large investments in the folkeskole, the Danish public primary and lower secondary school. The new four-leaf clover government has now set out its school priorities, but the result is more cautious than many campaign promises suggested.
More teachers, including retired ones, in classrooms
The government wants to retain and attract more teachers to the folkeskole. The platform does not yet explain in detail how this will happen, but one measure is to make it easier to become a meritlærer, a teacher who already has another higher education degree and completes a shorter teacher training pathway.
The government also wants to encourage retired teachers to return to schools for some teaching hours. The idea has been welcomed by the Danish Union of Teachers (Danmarks Lærerforening), whose chair, Gordon Ørskov Madsen, told DR that many retired teachers are ready to help if the right conditions are in place.
The wider challenge is recruitment. According to the teachers’ union, around 40,000 trained teachers currently work outside the public school system. Bringing even part of that group back into the classroom would be one way to raise staffing levels without relying only on new teacher graduates.
The promised billions are smaller than during the campaign
During the campaign, the parties now in government made large school promises. Socialdemokratiet proposed 5 billion Danish kroner a year for public schools. SF proposed 6.2 billion kroner. Radikale Venstre proposed more than 7 billion kroner.
The final government platform is more limited. It allocates 5 billion kroner annually — about 670 million euro — not only to public schools, but also to after-school care, youth clubs, kindergartens and other initiatives for children.
That is still a significant amount of money, but it is spread across a wider field. School expert Andreas Rasch-Christensen of VIA University College told DR that the result was somewhat disappointing because the amount must now cover more than the schools themselves.
The compromise shows the gap between campaign rhetoric and coalition government. All four parties wanted to show that they prioritised children and schools, but the final agreement had to fit inside a broader welfare and economic package.
A targeted lift for the 100 weakest schools
One of the clearest measures is a targeted effort for the 100 schools where pupils perform worst academically. The government says these schools need a significant lift and wants to make this one of its first school initiatives.
The plan includes accelerated learning courses, short and intensive learning programmes designed to help pupils who are behind, for example in mathematics. These courses would involve extra teaching time with experienced teachers.
Rasch-Christensen told DR that this could make sense if it is integrated into ordinary teaching. He warned, however, that previous short-term “turbo” projects have not always produced lasting effects.
The government has not yet published a list of the schools that would be included.
Help for children with school absence and low wellbeing
The government also wants to address long-term school absence and poor wellbeing among pupils. The issue has received growing attention in Denmark, including after the documentary The Lost Children of School, which intensified debate about children who struggle to attend school.
More than one in five primary and lower secondary pupils has a concerning level of absence, meaning they are away from school for more than 10 percent of the time.
The government wants a support package for families affected by prolonged school absence. The model would require professionals to meet the child and family, develop a clear plan and assign the case to a family ambassador.
This measure shows that the government sees school reform not only as a question of academic performance, but also as a social and mental health issue.
Private and independent schools may get more responsibility
The government also wants to examine how independent and private schools can take greater social responsibility for pupils with special difficulties and needs.
This reopens an old debate in Danish education policy. Public schools carry a large part of the responsibility for pupils who need extra support, while private and independent schools have often been criticised for not taking on the same share.
The platform does not yet explain how the government would implement this change. That will be the key question. If private and independent schools are expected to include more pupils with special needs, the government will need to define funding, obligations and oversight.
Inclusion is largely absent from the platform
One striking point is what the platform does not say. Inclusion, which has been one of the most contentious issues in Danish schools for years, is not directly addressed in the government platform.
Rasch-Christensen described this as surprising, because inclusion remains one of the most obvious challenges in the public school system. The absence may indicate that the governing parties did not fully agree on the issue.
The platform does, however, say that the government will implement the existing agreement on new rules for absence and special education in the public school. That agreement includes faster help for children with special needs and requires school leaders to prepare a support plan when a pupil has more than 10 days of sickness absence.
The government is therefore touching the inclusion debate indirectly, even if it does not use the word as a central political frame.
What happened to the campaign promises?
The final school package is a compromise between four different political projects.
The Social Democrats campaigned on “Lilleskolen”, a model with a maximum of 14 pupils in the youngest classes. That idea does not appear as a direct national class-size cap in the final platform.
SF wanted a general class ceiling of 24 pupils, more two-teacher lessons and major investment. The party has secured a stronger focus on children and schools, but not its full class-size model.
Radikale Venstre wanted more than 7 billion kroner for public schools, more two-teacher lessons, free school meals and school psychologists. The final platform includes more resources and wellbeing measures, but not the full Radikale school agenda.
The Moderates were sceptical of the Social Democratic small-school model and preferred more flexible teaching models, including experiments with two adults in classrooms. The final text is closer to this flexible approach than to a strict national class-size rule.
In short, the government has kept the political priority, but softened the campaign promises. It wants more adults, stronger support and targeted investment, but it has avoided the most rigid structural commitments.
A school reform that still needs details
The government’s school policy is broad, but many details remain open. It wants more teachers, stronger support for vulnerable pupils, targeted help for weak schools, more responsibility from private schools and better responses to absence and special needs.
But the platform leaves several questions unanswered. How many teachers can realistically be brought back? How will the money be divided between schools and other children’s initiatives? Which schools will be prioritised? How will private schools be required to take more responsibility? And how will the government deal with inclusion without naming it directly?
The answer will matter beyond education. The folkeskole is one of the most important institutions in the Nordic welfare model: a place where equality, local community, childhood and democratic citizenship meet.
The new government has promised to strengthen it. The next test is whether the compromise can become a concrete reform.
