Editing Higher Technical Examination Programme (section)

===History===
The HTX Programme was established in 1982 by the Ministry of Education as an experiment to oblige the rising demand for more technical and scientific educated labour in [[Denmark]] at the time.
Before 1982 there were only three ways to get a university degree in the Danish education system; through the ‘[[Gymnasium (Denmark)|Gymnasium]] (STX)’, ‘[[Higher Preparatory Examination]] (HF)’ or ‘[[Higher Commercial Examination Programme]] (HHX)’. Of those, only the Gymnasium could lead directly to a technical university education, but it wasn't a wholesome{{clarify|date=January 2019}} way since there were a lot of mandatory subjects which was of no use at a technical university education (classical studies [Danish: oldtidskundskab], religious studies, history, and physical education). None of those oriented in special only{{clarify|date=January 2019}} to the scientific, technical and communicative subjects, which in a more and more globalised Denmark began to matter a great deal. The labour market was experiencing downturns due to great changes in the Danish business sector, where Denmark's role in the world was shifting from a productive industrial country (like [[China]]), to a more service-industrial country, with research and "production of knowledge" becoming the most vital markets. To be compatible with the rest of the world, more engineers and scientists needed to be educated.

This was where the Higher Technical Examination Programme entered the picture. HTX was then only offered as a 2½-year programme, which only gave admission to certain technical educations, like bachelor engineer (Danish: teknikumingeniør)  and civil engineer (Danish: civilingeniør) in construction. As an experimental programme, the HTX was using the most modern method of teaching,{{clarify|date=January 2019}} and a lot of interdisciplinary group- and project-work to imitate situations that students would encounter in the real world – something that wasn't being done a great deal in gymnasia. The programme also quickly adapted computer technology for use in the education like mathematics. The main subjects were of course chemistry, biology, physics and mathematics, and the education was on the same level as the gymnasium, without the unnecessary subjects.
The programme was a great success. As the experimental phase was being closed in 1988, the HTX programme was to become a fully integrated part of the Danish education system. It began to spread throughout the Danish education system, and was offered at the most technically oriented vocational secondary schools (Danish: tekniske erhvervsskoler) before long. The programme though had image problems as it was somehow regarded a "geek-school" because of the great deal of technical and scientific subjects that didn't attract female attention, which caused the HTX programme to be very male-dominated in the first years.

On 1 January 1991, the subjects were divided into A, B and C levels, which for that reason removed the last thing that kept the HTX programme from being a complete academically oriented upper secondary education equal to the gymnasium. The HTX programme was now also extended to 3 full years of studying, with a final exam in the A-level subjects at the last year. From now on, the HTX programme could lead to any university education, but still with focus on the technical and scientific subjects, and less on the [[humanities|humanist]] subjects, though it was also possible to take optional subjects (like design and psychology) that may give access to some humanist university educations. Some new unique subjects to be found only at the HTX programme, like the "technique-subject" (Danish: teknikfag), technology and [[history of technology]] were introduced. At the same time, the mandatory level of chemistry, physics and mathematics was set a level higher (B-level) than at the gymnasium (C-level), which meant that an HTX graduate, unlike an STX graduate, automatically had admission to any technical university education.

In 2005, there was a gymnasium reform. The gymnasium, the HHX programme and the HTX programme were now fully equal, which means that they have the same optional subjects, and they have adopted some of each other's strengths to make a fully integrated academically oriented upper secondary education. For example, the 3 programmes have very similar 6-month introduction semesters (''grundforløb''), which make it easy to shift between the 3 programmes to find the most suitable for one. Furthermore, the subject "history of technology" was made obligatory at C-level.

In 2007 the Ministry of Education revised the "Gymnasium-reform", and introduced [[biotechnology]] as a new optional subject, which until 2009 is offered only as an experiment.