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SCHOOLS

Danish government keen to limit screen time at schools

Use of screens and monitors should not become too great an element of the school day, according to Danish education minister Mathias Tesfaye.

Danish government keen to limit screen time at schools
An illustration file photo shows Danish students working on laptops in a classroom. The government wants to take steps to limit screen time in schools. Photo: Søren Bidstrup/Ritzau Scanpix

Tesfaye has asked the Agency for Education and Quality (Styrelsen for Uddannelse og Kvalitet, Stuk), which answers to the Ministry of Children and Education, to produce guidelines or recommendations on the use of screens at elementary schools, after-school institutions (skolefritidsordninger, SFO’er) and youth education programmes.

The move by Tesfaye was first reported by education media Skolemonitor.

The new guidelines would be aimed at head teachers, teachers and other school staff.

In the instructions to Stuk, Tesfaye wrote that excessive screen use can distance pupils from each other.

“Digital-based lessons can be well-justified as a didactic learning element, but screens can also reduce intimacy, distract and in some contexts pacify children and young people and make them less capable of performing individual tasks,” he wrote.

READ ALSO: How Scandinavia’s forest preschools boost children’s health and confidence

Different guidelines could be produced for different stages of the school system.

The order from Tesfaye comes after debate in recent weeks on the potential benefits of limiting screen use at Danish schools.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen suggested in comments last month in parliament that children’s wellbeing can suffer if screen use is excessive.

“It’s not the traffic that’s most dangerous for children now. It’s this,” she said as she waved a smart phone.

READ ALSO: Could Denmark ban mobile phones at schools?

Tesfaye has meanwhile suggested that a law change could minimise the amount of screen use by children aged 0-6 in childcare and early years education.

Recommendations from the agency are expected to be ready in October for youth education programmes, but not until December for schools.

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SCHOOLS

Danish watchdog discovers violent harassment of teachers at 46 schools

Authorities in Denmark have required school leaderships to intervene against violence and harassment aimed at teachers on scores of occasions in recent years.

Danish watchdog discovers violent harassment of teachers at 46 schools

The Danish Working Environment Authority (Arbejdstilsynet), the government authority responsible for inspecting conditions at workplaces, issued 57 different orders at 46 different schools related to harassment and violence against teachers and childcarers over a three-year-period from 2021 to 2023.

The frequent number of cases was reported by teachers’ journal Fagbladet Folkeskolen and the national centre for investigative journalism, Gravercentret, via an access to documents request.

When an order is issued by the authority, this means that Danish working environment laws have been breached, obliging the employer to find a resolution to the problem.

READ ALSO: One in five children at Danish schools has 10 percent absence

Problems related to violence, threats and harassment at the 46 schools were reported by the Working Environment Authority to be so serious that they “can degrade the physical or mental health of staff in the short or long term”.

A review of the reports by Fagbladet Folkeskolen and Gravercentret showed that incidents of harassment or physical attacks took place on a daily or weekly basis.

One report from a school in the town of Hillerød north of Copenhagen stated that “employees experience physical or psychological violence so often that their boundaries and norms are shifted. Some of them consider it normal to be hit or kicked at work”.

Inspectors at a school in South Jutland town Haderslev meanwhile observed that staff “shut down their social lives at weekends to recover before going back to work and they don’t have the energy to spend their holidays on things like vacation with family”.

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