Tailored and targeted measures to help young Danes

A majority of young Danes leaving compulsory education plan to enter higher education. Yet each year some 10,000 never get started or leave before they graduate. That’s why the government has presented 25 initiatives targeting young people, to boost their employment and education levels.

In his presentation of the youth plan, the Minister for Education, Bertel Haarder, said: “If we don’t target the passive young, we nurture future benefit dependency and future criminals, including gang members. Work, travel, apprenticeships or higher education can all help people mature, helping especially those who are fed up with school to return to education”.

The plan will strengthen youth education information offices, found in each of Denmark’s municipalities. These offices start targeting youth in their final years of secondary school. Aside from high school education, other areas to be looked at include employment, apprenticeships, folk high schools (adult education which does not grand academic degrees) or voluntary work. Municipal job centres will play a more active role in reaching young people tired with school. They might offer mentors, and there will be coaches watching out for them and intervening if they start loosing interest in their education or work.

Local Government Denmark (LGD), the municipalities’ main interest organisation, agrees there is a need to create a more permanent and targeted approach to reach some young people.

“But the solution doesn’t only rest with municipalities. Because one of the main problems with youth and education is the lack of apprenticeships. That’s why we also need to see the private sector living up to their responsibilities,” says Erik Nielsen, head of LGD’s labour market and business group.

Youth benefit could go

All young people agree on a curriculum in cooperation with coaches, the young person themselves and parents. If they don’t stick to it, it could cost the family dearly. Parents risk loosing child support, which is being renamed youth benefit. Today the tax free benefit stands at 2.558 kroner (€340) every quarter.

The threat of removing the youth benefit has angered the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions and the Danish Association of Social Workers. They fear there is a great risk this will hit families with weak economies and low education levels the hardest.

“The proposal is a slap in the face for many poor families. It is amazingly naïve to believe that by threatening to take people’s benefits away they will somehow find the resources to motivate their children to get an education or a job,” says Ejner Holst, Secretary for the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions.

The youth plan comes in the wake of a range of government initiatives published in September. It then allocated 1 billion Kroner (€1.3 million) to create 5,000 new apprenticeships within vocational training as one of several measures aimed at fighting unemployment and helping 18 to 30 year-olds into education or work.