Pisa results expose deepening crisis in Denmark’s schools

Denmark’s latest Pisa results show that students have never performed worse in mathematics, reading and science, DR reports. The findings have been described as alarming and a disaster, renewing debate over the country’s public school system.

The Pisa study has had a major influence on Danish schools since 2001. Its results have helped shape national testing, school reforms and efforts to find inspiration in education systems abroad.

A shock in 2001

The first Pisa study caused dismay in Denmark by showing that children were not as strong in reading, mathematics and science as many had believed.

Denmark performed around the middle in reading and mathematics and was well behind Finland. The results prompted debate about how a well-funded school system, regarded as a cornerstone of the welfare state, could perform so modestly.

Professor Niels Egelund later told Altinget that Danish education professionals had been completely surprised by the number of young people who lacked functional reading skills and by the situation among young people with immigrant backgrounds.

National tests followed

The Pisa shock led not only to debate but also to a closer examination of Denmark’s public schools. Denmark asked the OECD to assess the school system, and a major study published in 2004 included recommendations for improving students’ academic performance.

In 2006, the Danish parliament decided to introduce national tests in public schools. Students would no longer be assessed only when the Pisa study came around every three years. Schools would also be able to monitor their academic progress continuously.

Lessons from Finland and Canada

As Denmark considered how to improve academic standards, many looked to Finland as a model. Danish books were written about the Finnish school system, while newspapers and television produced reports from Finnish classrooms. Former Education Minister Bertel Haarder also highlighted Finnish students as role models.

Supporters pointed to university-educated teachers, parents dropping children off outside school and discipline in the classroom. Municipal politicians and education professionals also made frequent study trips to Finland and Ontario in Canada, which performed well in the Pisa assessments.

Canada’s school system helped inspire Denmark’s 2014 public school reform, including clear learning objectives and a stronger focus on students’ academic development. Larger changes based on the Finnish model were discussed in Denmark but were not implemented to the same extent.

Andreas Rasch-Christensen, a school researcher at VIA University College, said study trips have since become less common as the idea of copying another country’s school system has become outdated.

“People have moved away from looking to one country and doing everything in the same way,” he said.

Pisa helped pave the way for reform

Denmark’s public school reform was introduced in 2014. The debate over Pisa had helped drive a development in which academic standards, learning objectives and measurement played an increasingly important role.

Students were to spend more time at school, teaching was to be guided by clear goals for what they should learn, and those struggling most were to receive more support.

“The public school reform should largely be seen as impatience to improve academic standards after many years of debate about Pisa,” Rasch-Christensen said.

A second Pisa shock

After the reform, the central question was whether it had worked and whether students’ academic performance had improved.

The answer gradually became less encouraging. Results began to decline again, and in 2022, Danish 15-year-olds recorded their lowest-ever result in mathematics.

When those results were presented, then Education Minister Mattias Tesfaye said he hoped that the person responsible for Pisa in Denmark, Vibeke Tornhøj Christensen, would be able to show different slides to the education minister three years later.

That did not happen. The latest Pisa study shows the weakest results ever recorded among Danish students in mathematics, reading and science.

“I find it worrying. When we also see the same trend in other results and studies in the school sector, it points to a Danish public school system in an academic crisis,” Rasch-Christensen said.