All you need to know about private schools in Denmark

Private schools with considerable state funding are common in Denmark.

This tradition mostly comes from the ideas and actions of N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783–1872), a priest, poet, and politician, and Christen Kold, a teacher (18161870).

Based on their ideas of “a school for life – based on the living word,” they started the first “folk high school” for adults in 1844 and the first “free school” for children in 1852. They were made to help people in the country.

Grundtvig and Kold’s ideas were so important to the way people thought about politics at the time that they were written into the Democratic Constitution that Denmark passed in 1915. It says that everyone must get an education, but it doesn’t say that everyone has to go to school.

In Denmark, all children must go to school for 9 years. However, if a certain minimum standard is met, it is up to the parents to decide whether their child goes to

a public primary and lower secondary school,
a private school, or
stays at home to learn.

Types of schools

Denmark’s private schools can be roughly put into the following groups:

Small independent schools in rural districts (friskoler)
Large independent schools in urban districts (privatskoler)
Religious or church-based schools
Progressive free schools
Schools that have a certain educational purpose, like the Rudolf Steiner schools
Schools for the German minority
Immigrant schools.

In the end, we can say that private schools will receive money from the government no matter what their beliefs are, politically, religiously, or racially. It is a characteristic of private schools that they are smaller than municipal schools. In Denmark, we can find ones operating for decades or freshly opened ones.

How do I apply?

Generally every school has their own requirements, which you can find on the website of the school. Our recommendation is to start there when you have already chosen the institution.

For the application you will need:

Child’s ID
Child’s CPR number
Vaccination record
School transfers from previous school years (if applicable)
Language tests of the schools primary language (if applicable)

How much do I have to pay?

The annual tuition fees start at 20.000 DKK but can also be 100.000 DKK

In order to pay reduced tuition fees at private schools, make sure your kid has a CPR number and is registered in school before September 5th.

Will they teach my children Danish?

One of the most important subjects in school is the Danish language. Please be aware that supervising the development of your child in Danish is your responsibility.

What time are they in school, compared to my working hours?

School year is 200 days a year. It starts in August and ends in June. Schools tend to work 30-35 hours a week. Most of them run between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Legislation

All parties in the Danish Parliament want a law that gives money to private schools, in part because they think it will help public schools as well from what private schools have to offer in terms of experience and competition. The law has a lot of specifics. Rules about how the government spends and supports, but only in the broadest rules about what should be taught and if the lesson is equal to what’s usually done in the school run by the city.

Educational content

All that is requested from private schools is that they are just as good as public schools. The Leaving Examination of the Primary and Lower Secondary School is held at small independent schools with a 9th grade unless they have told the Ministry of Education that they will not hold the exam. But in general, it is not up to the government, but rather the parents of each private school to make sure that it meets the same standards as the public schools.

Parents must choose the supervisors who will check the student’s level of achievement in Danish, arithmetic, mathematics, and English, as well as whether the school’s overall teaching meets the standards of a public school. If the teacher thinks the student doesn’t perform well enough, he or she must tell the Ministry of Education. If a parent is unhappy with their child’s private school, they can move their child to a different private school, a public school, or teach their child at home.

As mentioned in private schools the parents decide who is working with their children. Unlike the public schools. Many parents choose private schools for this specific reason.

Public grants system

The private schools get a grant (“per pupil per year”) to help pay for their operating costs. This grant is equal to the public spending in the public schools, minus what the parents pay to private schools. This is to make sure that public money goes in the same direction for both private and public schools.

Operational grants

The amount of money given to each student depends on three things: the size of the school (number of students), how the students’ ages are spread out, and where the school is.

A large school with mostly young students will get a small grant per student per year, while a small school with mostly older students will get a large grant per student.

Joint municipal financing

Basic school education is, in general, a job for the city, and the municipalities save expenditures on the students who go to private schools. The cities and towns, therefore, have to pay back the government for a lot of the work.

Private upper secondary schools

Private high schools get money from the government in the same way that private elementary schools do.

About 20 of these schools serve about 6% of all students in upper secondary school. They are different from private basic schools in that they follow the same rules for what they teach as public schools do. This is because they both lead to the same final exam, called the “Studentereksamen,” which is taken by students who have finished upper secondary school.