Gymnasium (Denmark)

[1] Apart from the common academic gymnasium, there are other types of occupation-oriented upper secondary education in Denmark.

[4] An upper secondary school leaving examination can also be taken within special 2-year courses for adult students.

As the Danish Primary school goes from 0th to 9th (10 years in total) All pupils that have received the relevant education and passed the prescribed examinations can continue to an upper secondary programme of more or less their own choosing.

In addition, while English is compulsory for all, each student also has to study another modern foreign language at either A or B level depending on whether it is taken continued or as beginner (the most common are German, French, Spanish and Italian).

[1] The elective subjects are: astronomy, biology, biotechnology, business economics, chemistry, computer science, design, drama, Greek, media-subject, Latin, music, physical geography, philosophy, psychology, rhetorics, study of technology, visual arts, and others.

Lessons encompass a combination of two or more of the student's other subjects (e.g. Danish, history and physics).

[12][13] As of 2014[update], approximately 15 gymnasiums[14] (N. Zahle's Gymnasium,[15] Ribe Katedralskole[16] and Thisted Gymnasium[17] to name a few) offer the classical line (den klassiske linje or den klassisksproglige linje, "the line of classical languages") consisting of Latin and Ancient Greek, the subjects of classical philology, at A level.

The upper secondary school exit examination, called studentereksamen in Danish, qualifies the student for admission to higher education, subject to regulations.

Instruction in the individual classes is co-ordinated with a view to achieving a coherence between the different subjects and a suitable distribution of the student's workload.[20]: ch.

6, §77 The instruction is usually organised as a combination of lecture, group work, practical experiments, and homework.

Examinations are usually either oral or written and in most cases the student is allowed to use all types of aids except for communication with other people.

Examinations in other subjects are chosen each year by the Ministry of Education for the individual student.

This system was however changed in 1988, where the students in their second year were able to choose more freely between a variety of subjects (a student could for instance have both a language and a scientific subject at the highest level, even if he had originally chosen the mathematical line of study).

More lines of study, decided by each gymnasium itself, were offered, and it was generally perceived to give a greater amount of customisability to the students.

Instead of choosing a line of study when enrolling, the students now only let the school know what line they intend to choose, and the final decision is made after half a year of introduction to the different faculties (primarily the arts, languages and natural science).

Furthermore, a wide range of general subjects, like for instance social studies, were made mandatory.