Governance of the Danish education system is part of the public sector administration and therefore guided by the same principles. For more than forty years the main focus has been on constructing a balance between local authority and central steering. The Management By Results (MBR) has for many years been the preferred model in the ‘Ministry for Finances’ and the ‘Agency for Modernisation and Public Administration,’ that is in charge of developing public administration and is therefore also the main model in the education system. NPM has been characterized by diverse combinations of three themes: Disintegration of public sectors into semi-autonomous units at several levels: national, regional, local and institutional. At all levels there are also initiatives to involve private companies and consultancies, in entering into the broad competition for contacts. Relations between areas are guided by competition between providers and by contracts between levels followed by incentivization, with pecuniary rewards on the basis of performance. An important player in Danish education governance is the ‘Local Government Denmark’ (LGD), the national association of municipality authorities. LGD is influenced by the NPM and MBR in its management of the public schools, but is often adjusting the local administration due to the nearness to practice. The Ministry of Education consist of the Department and five agencies. • The Department is responsible for developing and administering the Acts on primary and secondary education, that are decided in Parliament, through agencies and through the model of self-steering schools. • The National Agency for Education and Quality is mainly concerned with the supervision of economy and institutional administration, through supervision of quality of education, test, results and observance of rules in public schools. • The National Agency for It and Learning is concerned with two intertwined, main areas, The development and use of information technology (IT) and quality of learning and testing. MBR in the 2014 school reform has carried a tighter net of national standards: more than 3.000 competencies aims are prescribed in the Act. The MBR also brings increased numbers of national tests, now a total of 46 for all primary years, inspire that schools and teachers to ‘teach to the test’, and that means they focus on mechanical and technical aspects of subjects and thus working against comprehensive, general education, that is the main goal of schooling.

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