The number of upper secondary school classes with over 30 students has over the past year increased by 24 percent, writes Politiken.
Classes with over 30 students used to be the exception, but they are now increasingly becoming the norm. At the start of the school year a few weeks ago, 18,000 students began life at an upper secondary school in a class of 30 or more students.
Student groups say this is harmful to the weakest students in the classes. ‘This is an issue because the vital student-teacher time is heavily reduced,’ Frederik Gjørup Nielsen, a spokesman for the upper secondary school student association, told Politiken. ‘Additional students give fewer minutes for the rest of the class and the weakest students will be left in a tight corner.’
Gjørup Nielsen said he believed 28 students per class was the ideal figure, although there is currently no concrete law on the maximum number of students permitted in a class.
The chairman of the high school teachers association, Gorm Leschly, agreed with Nielsen that large classes can have harmful consequences. He warned that more teachers are needed per class, and that without this increase, the schools risk a rise in the drop-out rate and a fall in exam result averages.
According to figures from the Ministry of Education, the current drop-out rate is 16 percent per year.
The Copenhagen Post
