Education in Norway, a brief introduction

Our school has students from many different countries and with a different level in education. In Norway everybody has a right for primary school if they don’t have a comparative education from their home country.
Some of these students apply for our primary education, which in Norwegian is called, GRUNNSKOLE.
After a brief conversation with a counselor they are tested in English, mathematics and Norwegian.
The tests are done in May/June before start in august.

We have had some problems with these tests.
• Was they good enough?
• Did they give us the answers we want to now?
• Were they too easy or too difficult?
• And how did other schools solve these problems?
These questions led us to contact the school for adult education in Oslo in summer 2007. They are the largest school for adult education in Norway, and we learned that they had developed a test we also could use. The test was not a standard for the country, but several other schools in different communes used it.

The tests are internet based. The results are produced automatically after the student is finished. This does the work easier.

Norwegian grunnskole is 10 year. We are offering 3, 2, and 1 year courses depending on the results from the test. Each student gets a new meeting with a counselor. The results are discussed together with economy, final goals for the education and future occupation.

This was a brief introduction. I will try to follow up this blog what happens to the new students that begun at our school this august. I appriciate any comments, and I also want to know how this is done in your country.

Knut Aarvig.