SCHOOL REFORM (3)

Final, final talks between the Danish teachers unions and their local authority employers broke down last night. Unless something out of the ordinary happens next week, more than half a million schoolchildren won't be going back to school after the Easter holidays.

Lots of people - notably the students themselves - are urging compromise. But the basic issue is a difficult one to split down the middle. Either the teachers continue, as they have for many, many years, to keep the right to organise their own time outside of formal lessons. Or they accept, as the employers (with the Government discreetly in the background) would like, that headmasters organise their non-teaching time, with most of it taking place on school premises. Both sides see the issue as a fundamental principle, which it is. The problem is that they view it fundamentally differently.

It's difficult to see how this one will pan out. It's possible that a compromise will be found during the next week; lockout deadlines tend to concentrate the mind. On the other hand, both sides have invested so much in their respective positions that it's hard to see how they can retreat from them. One thing is certain; some people will be working hard over the coming holiday period, not least in Government offices.

Walter Blotscher