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SCHOOLS

Denmark drops plans to slash subsidies for free schools

Denmark's new government has abandoned an attempt to cut 300m Danish kroner ($44m) from the annual subsidy given to privately-run schools in Denmark.

Published: 5 November 2019 10:17 CET
Denmark drops plans to slash subsidies for free schools
Children play at Taastrup Private School outside Copenhagen. Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix
The cuts would have meant about 3,000 kroner less per pupil going annually to the schools. 
 
The schools, which are privately run but subsidised by the state, include schools teaching in English, German and French, schools serving Jewish and Muslim minorities, and schools following different pedagogical ideas. 
 
“I was very worried yesterday, because it would have been a huge challenge for all the schools to lose five percent of their state subsidies,” said Peter Bendix Pedersen, Chairman of the Danish Free Schools Association. 
 
“If it's going to be a real possibility for everyone to send their children to a free school in Denmark, then the subsidy has to be high.” 
 
The ruling Social Democrats dropped the proposal after facing stiff opposition in budget negotiations on Monday evening, with both their allies the Social Liberal Party and the opposition Liberal Party opposing the plan. 
 
“The free schools and all the children and parents who use them can breathe a sigh of relief,” the Social Liberal Party's leader, Morten Østergaard told the Ritzau newswire on Monday night. 
 
“We have eliminated one of the cuts that to our great surprise found its way into the Social Democrats' budget proposals.”
 
READ ALSO: 
 
The government had proposed cutting the subsidy for free schools from 76 percent of the average cost of a pupil at a normal state-run school, to 71 percent, aiming to use the money to increase spending on state-run schools. 
 
“As we said before the election, we want to prioritise state schools,” Finance Minister Nicolai Wammen said as he announced the proposal. 
 
Pedersen said that if the cuts had gone ahead, schools would have had to either reduce the quality of the education they provide or increase fees for parents, with some smaller schools in rural areas probably forced to shut down. 
 
“Maybe the parents would have had to pay more for their school fees, and some parents wouldn't be able to pay more than now,” he said. 
 
Denmark pioneered free schools, with the system established more than 150 years ago with the 1855 Free Schools Act. 
 
Unlike in neighbouring Sweden, free schools must be non-profit institutions if they are to receive state subsidies. 
 
The number of free schools has increased in recent years, with parents frequently opening new a free school when the government shuts down small schools in rural areas.  
 
There are currently 550 free schools in the country with about 110,000 pupils. Approximately 18 percent of all primary school children currently attend a free school. 
 
 

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DISCRIMINATION

Schools in Sweden discriminate against parents with Arabic names: study

Parents with Arabic-sounding names get a less friendly response and less help when choosing schools in Sweden, according to a new study from the University of Uppsala.

Published: 6 April 2022 12:05 CEST
Schools in Sweden discriminate against parents with Arabic names: study

In one of the largest discrimination experiments ever carried out in the country, 3,430 primary schools were contacted via email by a false parent who wanted to know more about the school. The parent left information about their name and profession.

In the email, the false parent stated that they were interested in placing their child at the school, and questions were asked about the school’s profile, queue length, and how the application process worked. The parent was either low-educated (nursing assistant) or highly educated (dentist). Some parents gave Swedish names and others gave “Arabic-sounding” names.

The report’s author, Jonas Larsson Taghizadeh said that the study had demonstrated “relatively large and statistically significant negative effects” for the fictional Arabic parents. 

“Our results show that responses to emails signed with Arabic names from school principals are less friendly, are less likely to indicate that there are open slots, and are less likely to contain positive information about the school,” he told The Local. 

READ ALSO: Men with foreign names face job discrimination in Sweden: study

The email responses received by the fictional Arabic parents were rated five percent less friendly than those received by the fictional Swedish parents, schools were 3.2 percentage points less likely to tell Arabic parents that there were open slots at the school, and were 3.9 percentage points less likely to include positive information about the municipality or the school. 

There was no statistically significant difference in the response rate and number of questions answered by schools to Swedish or Arabic-sounding parents. 

Taghizadeh said that there was more discrimination against those with a low social-economic status job than against those with an Arabic name, with the worst affected group being those who combined the two. 

“For socioeconomic discrimination, the results are similar, however, here the discrimination effects are somewhat larger,” he told The Local. 

Having a high economic status profession tended to cancel out the negative effects of having an Arabic name. 

“The discrimination effects are substantially important, as they could potentially indirectly influence parents’ school choice decision,” Taghizadeh said.

“Investigating socioeconomic discrimination is also important in itself, as discrimination is seldom studied and as explicit discrimination legislation that bans class-based discrimination is rare in Western countries including Sweden, in contrast to laws against ethnic discrimination.” 

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