NB. This article is a direct translation from a Danish article and it is by no means an expression of the school’s or the school board’s position

The international school of Kolding – The Cosmo – still has less than 20 students at the beginning of the second school year. The financial crisis is one of the reasons, says the school.

16 students started last Monday at The Cosmo – the International School of Southern Denmark, which is a department of Kolding Realskole.

The school has only managed to get a few students more than last year, which was the first year the school existed.

And the school is far from the targets, which its management announced at the beginning of last school year. Back then the headmaster of Kolding Realskole talked about 40 students the first year.

During the first school year the school has already used about 400,000 Danish crowns of the three yearly deficit guarantees, which two local companies have given The Cosmo.

But the head of department at The Cosmo, Simon Mosekjær, acknowledges that the school’s management was, perhaps, a bit too optimistic when the school opened.

A bit too optimistic

The school needs time to grow, and we were perhaps a bit too optimistic. It requires more work than we thought to get students to the school, and our wish is that we get 30-35 students next year. But before the next school year the school board will probably begin to estimate if it is realistic that The Cosmo can continue without deficits after the first three years, where we have deficit guarantees says Simon Mosekjær.

He thinks that the financial crisis has a large part of the blame for the fact that it is more difficult than expected to get students for The Cosmo.

Companies lack funds

We have to face the fact that a part of the companies which said that they would support the school do not have the financial means to do so.

Some of the larger companies have phoned and asked what a student costs on a yearly basis at the school, but even so they have not been willing to use money for it. But we continue, because we have deficit guarantees for at least the first three years, says Simon Mosekjær.

It is AH industries and Bjarne Nielsen, who owns Galerie Nielsen and the shipping agency H. Daugaard A/S who each of them supports The Cosmo with a deficit guarantee of one million Danish crowns.

It has not been possible to get a comment from the chairman of the school board of Kolding Realskole, Henning Larsen.

Facts

The Cosmo – International School of Southern Denmark – is a department of Kolding Realskole. The school collaborates with Business Kolding.

All lessons are taught in English, and German and French are taught at all levels.

There are students from Germany, Vietnam, Spain, Iraq, Greece, England and Morocco at the school. The school has 16 students in the age from 5 to 16, who are divided in two classes – Primary and Lower Secondary. Due to the small number of students and the large spread in ages the school works with individual students’ plans, which are adapted to the age of every single student.

The price is between 2,000 and 2,600 Danish crows a month to have a student at The Cosmo.

This feature is a direct translation of a newspaper arctile from Jydske Vestkysten, Wednesday the 19th of August.

NB. This article is a direct translation from a Danish article and it is by no means an expression of the school’s or the school board’s position