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Today’s front pages – Monday, Feb 18

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February 18th, 2013


This article is more than 11 years old.

The Copenhagen Post’s daily digest of what the Danish dailies are reporting on their front pages

Students forced to take exams

The government wants to push students through their education quicker by taking away state-allocated student allowance (SU) if students miss exams. The idea, which the government has proposed as part of its SU reform, means that students will automatically be signed up to exams that can only be missed due to specific reasons, such as illness. Combined with demands for the universities, the proposal is expected to generate hundreds of millions of kroner to state coffers. – Jyllands-Posten

To work, or not to work

Many Danes believe that there are jobs for everyone if the unemployed really wanted to work, according to a report. The report, compiled by YouGov for metroXpress newspaper, indicated that 35 percent of Danes believe that everyone could find work if they lowered their demands a bit. But labour experts disagree, saying that there are simply not enough jobs available and further suggesting that the public has been influenced by the unemployment debate raging in the media. – metroXpress

Opposition wants to halt business taxes

Opposition party Venstre (V) wants a guarantee that there won’t be any new taxes and fees aimed at the business sector for the next 30 months leading up to the next parliamentary elections.  V's leader and the former prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, said he is tired of the government continuously adding and taking away taxes that affect business, such as the sugar tax, and has set the issue as one of his party’s main priorities for the upcoming growth-package negotiations. – Politiken

"We need to cut and some people are going to feel it"

Konservative party leader Lars Barfoed wants the opposition parties to unite around an all-encompassing 2020 economic plan. At the heart of the plan should be zero growth in the public sector, he said. In an interview with Berlingske, Barfoed said that the opposition parties "need to have the courage to tell Danes openly" that cuts to the public welfare system are necessary. In contrast to fellow opposition party leader, Lars Løkke Rasmussen (Venstre), Barfoed said that it is not enough to say that the same level of welfare can be attained while also making cuts. "We can't solve everything by just doing things smarter," Barfoed said. "We need to cut in some areas where some people are going to feel it." Venstre's political spokesperson Ellen Trane Nørdby disagreed however, insisting that "it is very much possible to do things more effectively." – Berlingske


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”