Jakob Riis: If we look beyond COVID-19, which areas do you consider important to focus on in order to improve and to sustain Denmark’s competitiveness?
Dorte Zacho Martinsen: When it comes to sustaining our competitiveness, we need to address at least two key pain points. The first one is to improve the business conditions for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME’s), who are the backbone in business Denmark (99 percent of all businesses in Denmark, approx. 300,000 businesses). An analysis from the Confederation of Danish Industry in 2019 showed that 94 percent of Denmark's high-growth businesses are SMEs. They accounted for almost half of the increase in value creation created by Danish high-growth companies in 2013-2016. The number speaks for itself. The owners behind these SMEs are dedicated and passionate people but this drowns in bureaucracy.
People is the most important ‘raw material’ for Danish businesses – and we are not doing a good job taking care of it.
The second one is that with all the possibilities open to us today with globalisation, digitalisation, internet etc. also comes a lot of choices. With this comes the fear in the younger generation of not choosing the right path or missing out. This ends up being a limitation which negatively affects the mental health. People is the most important ‘raw material’ for Danish businesses – and we are not doing a good job taking care of it. That is what is most important to me, namely that Denmark’s approach to preparing the younger generation for life with the right level of life skills and resilience in order to meet life’s challenges, has become too academic and too focussed on perfection. The primary school focusses on getting the right academic skills but has become detached from the practical use of these skills in their working lives and also of course life in general. This is very far away from three principles that I consider key: “Passion, play and learning”.
We seem to only focus on celebrating successes not our mistakes, despite the great learning element connected to this
Jakob Riis: So, like Professor Emeritus Per Schultz Jørgensen, former Chairman of the The National Council for Children, you see one of the roles for the primary school as preparing the younger generation for meeting life’s challenges. What do we have to do differently in your opinion? If you were to give a piece of advice to the Minister of Education, what would that be?
Dorte Zacho Martinsen: Firstly, it would be to bring primary school and local businesses closer together in order to connect academic skills closer to the practical use of these. Here in Holstebro, in Jutland, where I live, I have for the seventh year in a row been teaching “practical mathematics” for the sixth grade.
This means that the classes are taking place at BM Silo and instead of just doing certain calculations or modelling behind the school desk, we turn it around and say, “ In order to meet this and this challenge, which calculations do we need?”, and then, afterwards, do that calculation. This could be working with scale, measuring and assembling a product, doing the right calculations during this process, doing exchange rate calculations in sale etc. In this way, they can see that mathematics in school is important in many business contexts. The pupils find that this is a relevant way of learning by playing with a lot of passion for solving the challenge ahead of them. Secondly, it would be to increase the use of mentoring for pupils early. I guess, when we all look back, we have had some kind of mentor that ensured the right level of motivation when the school became difficult and taught us that not everything had to be perfect from the start and learning from mistakes, was actually good. We seem to only focus on celebrating successes not our mistakes, despite the great learning element connected to this. In BM Silo, we celebrate both successes and mistakes with cake. Thirdly, it would be to introduce mandatory vocational basic course or education program as a qualifier for access to higher education, to underline the practical use of skills. And, if I were to be very bold, I would say, move the 9th and 10th grade to the Technical Schools in order to try the STEM-related subjects and combine this with craft subjects or with an exchange aboard in order to get real-life experience with language and culture.
Jakob Riis: Besides our strengths related to SMEs, do you see other strengths that would be important for us to enhance or maybe just be more aware of?
Dorte Zacho Martinsen: Definitely! I consider our culture and in relation to business, our lack of hierarchy when it comes to leadership, as a strength which is important for us to keep. That is one element that I highlight, when I am doing presentations with foreign participation and also the feedback, I get from them, too.
Jakob Riis: So, based on your view on our strengths and barriers, if you were to sum up with a piece of advice to the Danish government on how to strengthen our competitive advantage, what would that be?
Dorte Zacho Martinsen: In order to strengthen our competitiveness, I would provide the following advice:
- Ease the business conditions for SMEs
- Increase the practical use of academic skills in primary school by connecting local businesses to the schools
- Introduce a mentoring system as part of the primary school
- Introduce mandatory vocational basic course or education program as a qualifier for access to higher education
