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RESEARCH

Record number apply for higher education

Well over 90,000 students have sought admission to Denmark's universities. The record number of applicants will find out later this month if they been accepted.

Published: 5 July 2014 21:06 CEST
Record number apply for higher education
This was the scene at Aalborg University last year - even more students will be in the hall this autumn. Photo: Henning Bagger/Scanpix
A record number of Danes have applied for acceptance into a higher education programme, the education ministry revealed on Saturday. 
 
Just after the application deadline expired at noon on July 5th, the ministry announced that 91,231 individuals applied for higher education this year.
 
That represents the highest number ever and a four percent increase over last year’s 88,040 applications. 
 
The minister for higher education and research, Sofie Carsten Nielsen, welcomed the increase. 
 
“We need to use all of the sharp minds and every single set of hands to find solutions to future challenges in areas like health and the environment,” she said. “Denmark will live off of all the innovative ideas and talents of the young people who have applied for a further education.”
 
In 2012, the Danish government reached its goal of having 60 percent of every year’s high school graduating class continue their education. 
 
This year’s 91,231 applicants will find out on July 30th if they have been accepted to their choice of study. In 2013, 63,525 of the 88,040 applicants got into their chosen field, an acceptance rate of 72 percent.

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EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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