The Norwegian Education Mirror 2022

In 2022, 19 per cent of primary school age children have migrant backgrounds; 8 percentage points more than in 2011 (Statistics Norway 2022). Nearly 8 per cent of children with migrant backgrounds are immigrants themselves, and just under 12 per cent were born in Norway to two immigrant parents.

Fewer pupils with special Norwegian language tuition and other special language tuition

In the 2021-2022 school year, 39,700 pupils in primary and lower secondary schools received special Norwegian language tuition. This is equivalent to 6.3 per cent of pupils, equivalent to 2020-2021. The proportion of pupils with special language tuition has gradually decreased over the past ten years, with the exception of a slight increase after the European migrant crisis in 2015.

Special Norwegian language tuition must be a temporary provision to those who need it. This is likely the main reason that its prevalence is highest among the lowest years. While 8 per cent of pupils in Years 1-4 received special Norwegian language tuition in the 2021-2022 school year, the equivalent proportion in Years 8-10 was 4 per cent.

The size of the proportion of pupils receiving special Norwegian language tuition varies much between municipalities. Of the biggest municipalities, Oslo has the highest proportion of pupils who receive special Norwegian language tuition (19 per cent).

26 per cent of pupils who received special Norwegian language tuition in the 2021-2022 school year also received special language tuition. In total, 10,400 pupils, 2 per cent of all pupils, received mother-tongue education, bilingual vocational training or adapted education. Most pupils receive other special language education in Arabic, Polish and Somali. Since 2012-2013, there has been a decline in the number of pupils receiving mother-tongue education or bilingual vocational training.

The most usual provision for new arrivals is linguistic adaptation in ordinary classes. Primary school age children who have just come to Norway have a right and a duty to primary school education if it is likely that they will be in Norway for more than three months.

In the 2021-2022 school year, 3,500 pupils received tuition via introductory classes. Pupils in introductory classes make up 9 per cent of pupils who receive special Norwegian language tuition.

In the 'Spørsmål til Skole-Norge' survey in spring 2022, school leaders and municipalities were asked what educational provision is given to newly arrived pupils (Bergene et al. 2022). The most usual provision for new arrivals is linguistic adaptation in ordinary classes; 83 per cent of municipalities provide this. 56 per cent of municipalities provide teaching in separate groups for minority-language pupils, and 35 per cent provide teaching in introductory classes. Even though introductory classes are generally offed by a relatively low proportion of the municipalities, it is a very widespread provision in large, central municipalities. All municipalities in the Oslo area and all of the most central municipalities offer such classes.

In the same survey, over half of the schools that participated said that they have access to teachers with the expertise to map newly arrived pupils, while only 27 per cent said that they have access to a sufficient number of teachers with significant experience in providing special Norwegian language tuition. A large majority of schools also stated that they lack teachers with credits in multicultural pedagogy, and only half state that they have access to teachers who have at least 30 credits in Norwegian as a second language.

Education offers for new arrivals from Ukraine

The number of newly arrived children and young people has sunk significantly since the European migrant crisis in 2015. In February 2022, however, the war between Ukraine and Russia triggered a new flow of refugees, which has influenced work in Norwegian schools and municipalities. Nearly 5,700 Ukrainian children, aged between 6 and 15, have claimed asylum so far in 2022. (UDI, 04.10.22). It is important that children and young people coming to Norway quickly receive an offer of education. These pupils have the same rights in school as other pupils, including the right to special language tuition and introductory classes.

The government has approved some temporary changes to make it easier for kindergartens and schools to take in refugees from Ukraine. These changes include giving municipalities an extension of the deadline for providing full tuition from one to three months, but they must still provide tuition to pupils as quickly as possible. Municipalities can also organise introductory classes for newly arrived pupils in separate groups, classes or schools without the pupil or the pupil's parents having to agree, as before.

A survey by the County Governor Joint Services shows that most Ukrainian children and young people in Norway receive introductory classes within four weeks of arriving in the country (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training 2022a). The majority of the municipalities state that they still have sufficient capacity to provide resident Ukrainian children and young people with a full-fledged education provision. The municipalities who report capacity challenges most often point to a lack of staff and teachers with relevant expertise. Time to plan the educational provision and a lack of space are less of a challenge when municipalities come up with a satisfactory education provision than they once were. One of the reasons as to why some pupils do not take up the education offers is that some prefer to follow along with digital education in Ukraine.