New national tests for the Danish public school system – Tensions between renewal and orthodoxy before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

This article explores the struggles over the development of new national tests for the Danish public school system before, during, and after the lockdown of society due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The article throws light on the stakeholder positions, arguments, and discourses involved in assessment policy formation with particular attention on the national tests as the key component of the new assessment system. Drawing on policy documents, media news stories, and interviews with teachers, school leaders, politicians, and civil servants at the municipal and national levels, the article adds to our understanding of how assessment policies come into existence and offers reflections on the implications and conditions for how assessment systems may evolve.

KEYWORDS:

• Danish education
• assessment
• national tests
• COVID-19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Individual student plans are compulsory for each student every year in all subjects (Moos et al., 2011). Apart from subject content and pedagogical progress the student plans also serve a purpose of holding students and parents to account at parent-teacher conversations. In this sense, the student plans are also an assessment technology.

2. The municipal quality report is a statutory public governance instrument instituted in 2006. In his description of the instrument Moos (2014) explains, ‘The Ministry of Education sets the goals of education and provides a broad template for the quality reports. The municipal level is allowed to modify the quality-report template and education aims to align with local policies. Schools are responsible for writing the report and may include information on staff use of sick leave, allocations for teachers, staff salaries, etc. In addition, schools may formulate their one- to three-year goals that align with issues either selected by the district administrators or by the school leaders and teachers. The school is expected to conduct an annual self-evaluation and use its outcomes to formulate aims for the following year. The mixture of fixed issues and school issues included in the quality report is at the discretion of schools, as are choices pertaining to self-evaluation procedures (p. 438f.).

3. It should be duly mentioned that the private right-wing libertarian think tank Centre for Political Studies annually publishes league tables of schools in Denmark using the publicly available data.

4. The Together for School initiative consists of the government and the leading interest organisations engaged in the public school system, namely, the Teachers’ Union, the School Leader Association, the Association of Municipalities (or Local Government Denmark), Danish School Students, School and Parents, the Union of Pedagogues in Denmark, and the Association for Public Administrators for Children and Culture. All translations from Danish into English were by the author, unless stated otherwise.

5. The Government Auditor has estimated the cost of developing the national tests (between 2005 and 2010) at about US$16.5 million.

6. See https://www.altinget.dk/uddannelse/artikel/de-skal-raadgive-riisager-om-nationale-test.

7. See https://www.uvm.dk/folkeskolen/elevplaner-nationale-test–trivselsmaaling-og-sprogproever/nationale-test/evaluering-af-de-nationale-test.

8. See https://www.folkeskolen.dk/1672929/bondo-hvorfor-skal-ringeste-skoler-tvinges-til-de-nationale-test-.

9. See https://www.dr.dk/radio/p1/p1-morgen/p1-morgen-2021-04-08.

10. e.g. this television news story: https://www.tv2nord.dk/jammerbugt/kommuner-til-minister-skoleboern-skal-fritages-for-nationale-test.

11. See https://www.skolelederforeningen.org/nyheder-medier/nyheder/2021/kl-dlf-og-skolelederforeningen-foreslaar-ny-model-for-evaluering-og-bedoemmelse-i-folkeskolen/.

12. See https://skolemonitor.dk/nyheder/art8523134/De-nye-test-bliver-ikke-mere-præcise-og-vil-skabe-mere-konkurrence-og-mistrivsel.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Danish Council for Independent Research [8047-00063B].

Notes on contributors

Christian Ydesen

Christian Ydesen is full professor at the Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University, Denmark and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Education, Oxford University, UK. He is the PI of the project ‘The Global History of the OECD in education’ funded by the Aalborg University talent programme and the project 'Education Access under the Reign of Testing and Inclusion’ funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark.