The Norwegian Education Mirror 2022

High kindergarten coverage in Norway

93 per cent of children aged between 1 and 5 go to kindergarten. This figure is 97 per cent for children aged between 3 and 5. In comparison, the OECD average for children aged between 3 and 5 attending kindergarten is 83 per cent. (OECD 2021). In Sweden, this proportion is 94 per cent, while it is 97 per cent in Denmark.

In total, 268,000 children were attending kindergarten at the end of 2021, which is 3,800 fewer than in 2020. Since 2017, 13,000 fewer children have been attending kindergarten. This decline is related to smaller cohorts; in the last five years, there have been 17,000 fewer children aged 1 – 5 in the population (Statistics Norway 2022a).

Increased kindergarten participation for the youngest children

The proportion of children attending kindergarten has increased steadily since 2017, and this proportion has increased most among 1-year-olds. In 2021, 79 per cent of 1-year-olds went to kindergarten, compared to 72 per cent in 2017. There has also been an increase in the number of children younger than 1 year. This increase may be related to the right to kindergarten places being expanded. The right was first expanded in 2016 to include 1-year-olds born in August, and again in 2017 to include 1-year-olds born in September, October and November. 

Oslo and Agder have the lowest level of coverage for children aged between 1 and 5 years, with 92 per cent.

Kindergartens are becoming fewer and larger

At the end of 2021, there were 5,525 kindergartens in Norway, 95 fewer than in 2020. Since 2017, there are 350 fewer kindergartens.

25 per cent of kindergarten have 1-25 children, but only 7 per cent of children attend these smallest kindergartens. 18 per cent of children attend kindergartens with over 75 children.

Primarily, there are fewer of the smallest kindergartens. Since 2012, there are 625 fewer kindergartens with 1 – 25 children. This means that it is the smallest kindergartens which account for almost the entire decline. We find the same pattern with primary and lower secondary schools: There are 240 fewer schools since 2012, and schools are getting larger on average.

4 in 10 private kindergartens are part of a group

47 per cent of kindergartens are municipal, and 53 per cent are private. The division between private and municipal kindergartens has been stable for the last four years. Municipal kindergartens are a little larger on average, meaning that 50 per cent of children go to municipal kindergartens.

There are large variations between the different actors in the private part of the kindergarten sector. In total, 40 per cent of private kindergartens are part of a chain or group. Together, the kindergartens in the five largest chains make up 22 per cent of all private kindergartens. This means that the majority of private kindergartens are independent, or belong to groups with only a small number of kindergartens.

Larger groups of children in the largest kindergartens

Group size refers to the number of children normally in a stable group of children, for a while a group of staff is responsible. Group size does not relate to how many employees there are per child, but how many other children a child spends most of their time with on a day-to-day basis.

For the youngest children (0-2 years), the most usual group size is 9 children, while the group size for the oldest children (3-5 years) is usually 18 children.

There is large variation in group size. Even if 9 children is the most usual group size for the youngest children, 60 per cent of kindergartens have a normal group size of more than 9 children. Correspondingly, 37 per cent of kindergartens have more than 18 children per group for the oldest children. The group size for the youngest children seems likely to increase as the size of kindergartens increases, but there doesn’t seem to be a connection between group size and kindergarten size with regards to the oldest children.