During the period 2009 to 2012 some vocational colleges (institutions responsible for vocational education and training) provided short-cycle professional higher education on behalf of an academy of professional higher education.
Following legislation passed by the Danish Parliament in 2008, responsibility for the higher education programmes located at vocational colleges had been transferred to a new type of institution called erhvervsakademi, in English: academy of professional higher education, later renamed business academy. Consequently, the vocational colleges’ departments for short-cycle higher education were merged into academies of professional higher education.
The academies of professional higher education thus replaced the “erhvervsakademi” cooperation structure between vocational colleges.
However, some of the academies of professional higher education were not established as fully-fledged higher education institutions (the so-called “classic” model). Instead they followed a “light” model and delegated teaching to a vocational college during the first few years.
The process of moving short-cycle higher education from the vocational colleges to academies of professional higher education (now: business academies) was completed by 2012.
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