A job in upper secondary school

Job opportunities in upper secondary school

You will need to be qualified to teach in at least two subjects to achieve permanent employment at an upper secondary school (upper secondary, higher commercial, higher technical and higher preparatory level). To achieve a teaching qualification, you will need to be qualified both in your subject area(s) and in educational skills.

Professional qualification

You must have completed a graduate course in an academic subject (including thesis) to achieve professional qualification. In addition your optional subject must have a value of 90 or 95 ECTS – possibly 120 ECTS if at a different faculty from where you took your main subject. Individual optional subjects will tell you those that you are professionally qualified to teach.

If you have another degree, such as civil engineering or have a combination of subjects other than those taught at upper secondary school, it will be the responsibility of the headmaster at the school in question to decide whether your course qualifies you to teach a given subject.

Educational qualification

A new postgraduate teacher training course came into effect on 1 August 2009. Under the new scheme graduates can be permanently employed at a particular upper secondary school irrespective of whether they have taken the postgraduate course or not. And a new feature of their employment is that new teachers take the postgraduate course in-house if they have not already taken it.

The new postgraduate teacher training course is a one-year course and comprises a practical and a theoretical part. Practical training and theoretical training constitute four months full-time study each spread over one year. Subsidiary subject supplementation, familiar from the existing scheme in ordinary upper secondary schools, is done away with.

Teaching elsewhere

In addition to teaching at an upper secondary school, a university degree also qualifies you to teach at university colleges, high schools, universities and private companies such as language schools, course providers, consultancies, and similar. The individual employer is responsible for deciding whether your professional skills live up to requirements at the company in question.

More information

You can read more about the new postgraduate teacher training course and about jobs at upper secondary schools at The Danish National Union of Upper Secondary School Teachers .

You can also find job vacancies at www.gymnasiejob.dk  (in Danish only) and www.gymnasieskolen.dk   (in Danish only) under job adverts.