Choice and Competition in the Governance of the Danish Gymnasium School

After a major structural reform in 2007 changed the activities of educational funding, regulation, and provision, the gymnasium schools in Denmark became self-governed. This underlined the students’ ‘free choice’ of gymnasium school. However, the distribution of students among the gymnasium schools has entailed some problems. Some schools attract far too many students, while others struggle for economic survival due to fewer students applying. Self-governance has exposed the schools to an increased competition to attract the most students. Based on a case study on selected schools, we conclude that the freedom of choice involves a market logic that is contradictory to central aspects of democracy. This illustrates that subtle mechanisms of social and cultural selection take place and that the value-added grant system tends to have the same effect as that of financial selection: to increase public spending on the privileged students and institutions. Furthermore, the policy is contradictory to the workings of democracy since the ‘free choice’ is not open to all students but depends on location and resources. It is seen to lead to an increased polarisation, which poses a threat to universal provision and equality in the access to upper secondary education.