Danish students have the most compulsory education hours amongst all OECD countries, according to a newly-released annual education report.With 10,040 learning hours across ten years of education, Danish students receive more instruction than pupils in any of the 33 OECD nations, the organization’s ‘Education at a Glance 2015’ report revealed.

Denmark’s top-place spot in the OECD comparison is a direct result of the comprehensive school reform implemented at the outset of the 2014 school year. The reform, described as the most comprehensive schooling change in modern Danish history, introduced longer school days for students of all grade levels and took total compulsory instruction time from 8,070 hours to 10,040 across students’ ten years of education.

“This sharp increase makes Denmark the country with by far the highest figure among the OECD, for which the average is 7,570 hours,” the report read.

The school reform was highly controversial and carried with it the bitter memories of a conflict over teachers’ working hours that resulted in a three-week teacher lockout in April 2013, which affected 875,000 students and course participants – including over 550,000 public school students – and turned many parents sour on the reform package.

According to the OECD report, Denmark is still the country that “invests the greatest share of its wealth in primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education”. Denmark spent five percent of its gross domestic product on educational institutions.

The OECD also found that “Danish teachers earn more than the OECD average at nearly every stage in their careers and across all levels, but teach much longer hours.”

See more Denmark education indicators in OECD report: gpseducation.oecd.org/CountryProfile

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Graphics: "Education at a Glance 2015"