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August 4th, 2014

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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.