Danish six-year-olds go to school for 565 hours a year, Italians for 900. Anne Corbett analyses new European data. The number of hours that schools devote to specific subjects varies dramatically throughout Europe, the study shows.
Danish children have seven times more mother-tongue teaching at six than infants in Luxembourg. Italy has 233 hours of artistic activities per year at aged 13, Greece has 70. Northern Ireland gives 100 hours of maths teaching at 13, but Portugal only 56. France thinks all that is necessary in secondary schooling can be taught in 158 days a year while Denmark considers that 200 days are necessary - nearly 27 per cent more. The school year in German lAnder may last up to 188 or even 208 days.
The intensity of the school week and year varies across the union too. In some regions of Germany and Italy, and in Luxembourg, six-year-olds have school six days a week. The European Commission calculates that children of this age go to school for 564 hours a year in Denmark, and at least 900 hours in Italy - a country which is internationally renowned for its early-years schooling.
Most systems expect their pupils to have five or six big subject areas throughout most of their school life: mother-tongue teaching, mathematics, natural sciences and human sciences (including history and geography). Artistic activities and sport are included as compulsory subjects even if little time is allocated.
At primary level there are two big differences between the member states. One is the degree of time left to the teacher’s discretion. France leaves the management of the timetable entirely to the teacher. Spain and Italy leave between a quarter and a third of the timetable to the teacher’s discretion.
One can hypothesise that is because teachers in these countries enjoy high status, and in France at least, there is a sophisticated target and evaluation system in place which is seen as a more effective way of getting good teaching than by policing their hours.
A second difference between countries in the European Union lies in foreign language teaching. In parts of Belgium, Luxembourg and Ireland, learning a foreign language is compulsory for all schoolchildren from the age of six. In Germany, Spain and Italy it becomes compulsory at nine years old.
