According to DR, the Greenlandic parliament, Inatsisartut, unanimously approved a proposal to give greater priority to the teaching of English and Greenlandic in schools, at the expense of Danish, which has historically been the first foreign language in the education system.
Parliamentary consensus on strengthening the English language٠
The Sermitsiaq newspaper reported that all members of parliament voted in favor of the project, and asked the government to prepare a detailed action plan to implement these educational priorities, with the plan to be completed no later than next spring.
Demanding first place for English
The Naleraq party put forward a more extreme proposal to elevate English to the status of the first foreign language directly, ahead of Danish, but this proposal did not gain a majority, according to a report in the Sermitsiaq newspaper.
Fears of rapid radical change
Neve Olsen, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sport and Church Affairs from the Democrats party, explained, according to Sermitsiaq, that rushing the restructuring of the curriculum could have “negative consequences” for the educational process for students and teachers.
Current status of language teaching
The laws currently require the teaching of Danish in all primary school levels, and the Greenlandic school relies on Danish teachers in many classes, and most educational materials are available in Danish.
As for English, it is a compulsory subject starting from the fourth grade, although many Greenlandic children understand and speak it orally before that and consider it their favorite foreign language.
Desire to study in Denmark
DR statistics indicate that a large proportion of Greenlandic teenagers travel to Denmark annually to pursue their university or technical studies there, and proficiency in Danish and English is considered an important requirement for admission to Danish universities.
Exam results indicate that students excel in English at the expense of Danish.
The DR report, based on the results of the 2024 end-of-basic-stage examinations, also showed that the proportion of students who achieved the highest grade in the oral conversation test in English was 50% or higher, compared to only 30% who achieved a similar grade in Danish, highlighting the students' superiority in English compared to the traditional foreign language, namely Danish.
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