OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Denmark 2011
How can student assessment, teacher appraisal, school evaluation and system evaluation bring about real gains in performance across a country’s school system? This book provides, for Denmark, an independent analysis from an international perspective of major issues facing the evaluation and assessment framework in education, current policy initiatives, and possible future approaches. This series forms part of the OECD Review on Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes.
The Context of Evaluation and Assessment in Denmark
The decentralised Danish system places the major responsibility for quality assurance in compulsory education with the education providers, that is, the 98 municipalities for the public schools (Folkeskole) and parent-elected boards for private schools. Municipalities supervise the Folkeskole and the Ministry of Education supervises private schools. The Danish Government’s competitiveness strategy plus the ‘mediocre’ performance of Danish students on international assessments, have increased policy focus on improving student learning outcomes. To this end, there have been sustained central efforts since 2006 to stimulate evaluation and assessment activities in compulsory education, including new national bodies to monitor and evaluate quality in compulsory education, new national measures on student outcomes in compulsory education and requirements for municipalities to produce annual quality reports on their school systems. A current proposal for reform aims to strengthen academic performance by giving more freedom to schools in return for an increased focus on results.