Scan Magazine | Special Theme | Danish Education Special – Efterskoler
Learn to think like a global citizen It is no coincidence that as many as 97 per cent of students continue on to postsecondary education after a year at SKALs Efterskole (SKALs International Boarding School). Offering the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE), the school strives to give its Danish and international students a both personal and educational journey. The approach has placed the school among the five best-performing schools in Denmark. By Signe Hansen | Photos: SKALs Efterskole
Founded in central Jutland in 1990, SKALs Efterskole was designed to provide an alternative to the many free Danish boarding schools focused on personal development and social interaction. SKALs’ founders wanted to combine these traditional efterskole ideals with a more substantial preparation for its students’ continued professional and academic lives. From this ambition, the school’s current international profile nat62 | Issue 106 | November 2017
professionally and socially all over the world,” principal Sven Primdal explains. “A cultural ABC, the ability to move in and understand different cultures will be essential, and it requires two sets of competences: the academic – the languages, knowledge and so on; and the social – the ability to interact as an individual with people different from yourself. We want to give our students both.”
urally germinated. It is captured in the slogan ‘the world must be conquered every day’.
An international set of skills
“What we mean by this is that we have to relate to, and choose how to relate to, the world every day. As a young person today, you have to realise that you are part of a generation of people who, to a much greater extent than previous generations, must be able to conduct themselves
Of the 160 students enrolled annually at SKALs, 50 per cent choose to study and take the examination in the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE). The class, which is approved by the University of Cambridge, gives access to the International Baccalaureate (IB), which is offered by 14 Dan-