Students slow to finish degrees

Only 35- to 40 percent of Norwegian college and university students finish their degree programs within what’s considered the normal time, according to a report from the Ministry of Education and Research. Critics say the last two governments have failed to push through promised measures to speed up students’ progress. The percentage of students in Norway [...]

‘Russ’ keen to move up exams

Norway’s non-socialist political parties want to move up the date of high school students’ final year exams to before the Constitution Day holiday on the 17th of May. They think it makes much more sense for the graduating students called ‘russ‘ to celebrate and party after their exams, instead of before them. The suggestion to move the final exams to [...]

NHH most popular despite conflicts

Studies at the Norwegian School of Economics (Norges Handelshøyskole, NHH) in Bergen remain the most popular in the country despite some highly publicized conflicts involving the school’s newly departed chief executive and a tough election campaign for the school’s new dean. Fully 2,265 students listed an economics and administration major at NHH as their first [...]

Students tops in taking a year off

Norwegian students top European rankings of high school graduates who opt to take a year off before starting college or going to work. With few financial worries about pursing higher education, and long traditions for “living life” before settling down to work or study, more than 60 percent of young Norwegians take time for some [...]

Embassy reaches out to its own

The Romanian Embassy in Oslo has arguably had more than its share of dealing with a less-than flattering image of its citizens in Norway. Ambassador Daniel Ionita decided it was time to instead turn the spotlight on some highly educated and successful resident countrymen, and opened up the embassy on Monday with a ceremony and [...]

Day care centers ‘breaking the law’

Dangerous playground equipment, poor sanitation, babies waiting in a queue for diaper-changing and even the presence of rats and mildew: Oslo-based newspaper VG revealed on Monday that such conditions have been found at various day care centers around Norway. VG’s report set off an immediate uproar over the quality and control of the state-backed but [...]

Business schools caught in conflicts

Norway’s two major high-level business schools BI and NHH are both caught in conflicts over personnel and organization. Criticism also erupted this week over how the University of Oslo recruits its top academic talent. The conflict at Norwegian Business School BI in Oslo mostly concerns the management style of the school’s dean, Tom Colbjørnsen, and [...]

‘Christian schools OK, not Muslim schools’

Norway’s conservative Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, Frp) wants to make it easier to establish private schools in the country, but not those that would appeal to Muslim students. “It must be allowed to consider the need for integration when screening applications,” Frp’s spokesman on education issues, Tord Lien, told newspaper Aftenposten this week. Establishment of new [...]

Government flunks welfare test

Another new public opinion poll shows that only 10 percent of Norwegians think their primary welfare services – schools, health- and elder care – have improved in recent years. Nearly 30 percent now have less faith that Norway’s public sector will deliver the services individual Norwegians need and can demand.  The results of the poll, [...]

Better test scores cheer minister

Finally some good news for Education Minister Kristin Halvorsen: After years of seeing Norwegian students fall behind in international test scores, she could finally show off some new testing results that show progress in math, science and reading. “All the negative trends are reversed,” Halvorsen proudly proclaimed after releasing results this week from two sets [...]

Changes loom for would-be teachers

It’s only been two years snce sweeping changes were made in how aspiring teachers get taught themselves in Norway. Now nearly all the political parties in Parliament want to make more changes, and convert current curriculum to master’s degree programs. The goal is to attract and retain good teachers, and boost the scores of their [...]

‘Nynorsk’ said to boost creativity

Learning to write in both of the Norwegian language’s two official forms (bokmål and nynorsk) boosts creativity and helps when learning other languages, a new survey shows. The two forms are different enough to be like learning two separate languages and confer the same benefits as being bilingual. The survey results, however, were only welcomed by [...]

More Norwegian students head for the US

There’s been a big increase in the number of Norwegian students opting for universities in the US, after several years of decline in early 2000s. The US Embassy in Oslo reported Tuesday that enrollment is up 60 percent since 2008. A total of 2,016 Norwegians studied in the US in the academic year 2011-2012. The [...]

Universities dive in new rankings

Not a single Norwegian university made it into the rankings of the top 200 universities in the world this year. One of them received among the lowest scores for universities located in the Nordic countries, and Norway ended up with a generally poorer showing than in earlier years. Newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) published the World [...]

Tuition looms for foreign students

Norwegian universities have been hit by a wave of applications from foreign students lately, and some politicians suspect it’s because they’re still tuition-free for foreign citizens as well as Norwegians. That may change, if a growing bloc of politicians get their way. The Christian Democrats (Kristelig Folkeparti, KrF), The Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, Frp) and the [...]

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