Education

Early users, future developers

From early childhood the educational system in the Øresund Region, prepares people for the information and network society. From primary to tertiary education, students are given a thorough understanding of IT and its possibilities. Intense efforts are made to give everybody the skills to understand and exploit information and communication technologies, and to ensure that no one is excluded from the benefits of the information society.

These goals are pursued at a very early stage in people's lives by, e.g., equipping schools with computing tools, connecting all them to the Internet and, moreover, training teachers to use the new tools efficiently.

The results of such efforts are promising. Denmark and Sweden are among the European countries where the Internet is most used by teachers with their pupils. A survey by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 14 countries reveals that the countries are leaders when it comes to the use of information and communication technologies in upper secondary schools. In Europe, only in these two countries the number of teachers who regularly make use of computer applications in teaching is up to 60%.

Denmark and Sweden are also among the countries that are characterised by a ratio of fewer than 10 pupils aged 15 per computer, according to a survey conducted by the Eurydice Information Network on Education in Europe, maintained by the European Commission.

Preparing people to become active participants of the network society also involves providing them with solid language skills. The Øresunders' language proficiency is amongst the highest in Europe. The predominant languages spoken on both sides of the Øresund Region are English, German and French. English is clearly the preferred second language in the region: 79% of the Danes and 76% of the Swedes speak English fluently, according to the European Union.