Danish municipalities are creating paid training posts for student teachers to keep classrooms staffed this school year. Education Minister Magnus Heunicke describes the local initiatives as an expression of desperation.
Municipalities from Odsherred to Vejle and from Svendborg to Kalundborg have set up training positions for teacher students, DR reports. The students will spend a sizeable share of their study time in a classroom during the school year now beginning.
The aim is to hold back a shortage of trained teachers that is growing in parts of the country. Heunicke, of the Social Democrats, told DR he sees the municipal schemes as an expression of desperation, and that he understands it. He said it is absolutely decisive that pupils have qualified teachers.
In north-west Zealand, a new group of students is paid for the two days a week they teach at a school. That makes the arrangement an expense for the municipalities, unlike traditional teacher training, where the practical placement is unpaid, according to DR.
Vejle Mayor Jens Ejner Christensen, of Venstre, said the problem cannot wait for long political negotiations at Christiansborg. He described the training positions as one of the tools municipalities can use on their own.
Seven years without a turnaround
DR notes that the Social Democrats have held the education minister post for seven years without reversing the decline in the number of folkeskole teachers. Enrollment in teacher education programs is falling, and newly qualified teachers are dropping out of the profession.
Heunicke said he is placing some of his hope in the 2023 reform of teacher education. He also wants to make the public school attractive enough that some of the 40,000 teachers who have left the profession return.
Money must be set aside to bring more teachers into the folkeskole, especially in the early grades, the minister told DR. Several other municipalities are considering training positions modeled on the schemes now being expanded in north-west Zealand and Vejle Municipality.
Heunicke said all available tools are needed, including some that have not yet been invented. He pointed to the number of pupils who, after 10 years of school, do not pass the final exams in Danish and mathematics.
Other outlets have documented that pressure on results. CPH Post reported in May 2025 on an analysis by the Economic Council of the Labour Movement showing that 11.8 percent of students failed both Danish and math in the 2023/24 school year, the highest share since 2012. Politiken has reported that the failure rate in 9th grade has remained stuck at a high level.
The timing is tied to the start of the new school year, when the training posts are taking effect, as reported by DR. The broadcaster also notes that municipalities say the shortage cannot wait for national political talks, which is why local authorities are acting now.
