108

News

Teachers not so positive about school reforms

admin
August 4th, 2014


This article is more than 10 years old.

While parents are feeling upbeat, teachers are not convinced

Parents are beginning to come around to the ideas contained in the latest school reforms, according to a poll released yesterday by Jyllands-Posten. Teachers, however, remain sceptical about the changes.

“Not a single extra penny has been allotted to the schools for the extra teaching hours these reforms create,” Anders Bondo Christensen, head of the Danish teacher’s union told DR Nyheder. “If you are teaching 29 classes with only 3 or 4 hours allotted for preparation, it is hard to see the new and exciting collaboration between teaching and the workplace that these reforms are supposed to create.”

Christensen’s response is in contrast with the results of a recent poll, showing just one in five parents now take a negative view of the public school reforms coming into effect this coming school year. Over half of the parents surveyed said that the longer school day was a positive rather than a negative. Christensen disagreed.

“We know with great certainty that more hours does not create better students,” he countered. “It is first and foremost the quality of education that is essential.”

Christensen said that the “politicians” that created the reforms had not concerned themselves with quality, just quantity, and that parents would change their minds once the realities of the reforms became apparent.


Share

Most popular

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to receive The Daily Post

















Latest Podcast

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.”