The Norwegian school system should aim to provide opportunities for everyone. Then you cannot remove the possibility of correcting a diploma you got when you were 18 or 19 years old. Today’s admissions system has major challenges. The score limits are artificially high, and many people spend a long time taking up subjects in order to get into the study program of their dreams. The score limits for the most popular studies in Norway are constantly increasing, and the competition is fierce. In 2022, 64,000 out of 133,000 applicants entered their first choice in Samordna admissions. Striking on purpose In recent years, during the pandemic, we have had grade inflation which has led to more people having to improve their grades in order to get into the study program they want. If the possibility to take up subjects is removed, as the Admissions Committee has proposed, we risk that it will become even more difficult to enter higher education. One of the arguments for abolishing the private sector scheme is that Norwegian youth spend years taking up subjects. The fact is that most people who sign up for the exam to improve a grade are under 22. Only 2 per cent spend more than a year improving their results, figures from Statistics Norway show. The proposal to the Admissions Committee means that you should not be able to take up a subject you have already passed. This means that if you have a 3 in maths, you will not have the opportunity to get a 4 or 5. If a student realizes that he will not get the grade he needs to achieve a goal, he can, in the worst case, fail on purpose, so that he later has the opportunity to take up the subject and get a better grade. This can lead to the opposite effect of what you want, and that more people postpone subjects and take longer to complete upper secondary school. Pugge to pass the Privatist scheme is important, because it provides an opportunity to improve skills. Someone who dreams of becoming a doctor should be given the opportunity to take up subjects such as chemistry and biology, in order to have a solid foundation to do well in their studies. Someone who has taken these subjects at upper secondary school will do significantly better in any entrance exam than a student who opted out of these subjects. In the case of a general entrance examination, as the committee proposes, one probably only achieves an even greater rush for grades, where one strives to pass and not to learn. It may seem that one of the arguments for abolishing the privatist system is that those who improve their grades want to go into law, medicine or psychology. Statistics Norway has documented that three out of four private students take new subjects. The last quarter improve subjects they already have, and mostly consist of students with poor grades. Society’s needs The reality is that those who gain study qualifications after private school exams mostly apply for subjects such as nursing, IT and teacher studies. This is positive, as there is a shortage of nurses and teachers in particular. The majority of private students thus improve themselves for studies that society has a great need for someone to complete. For a student who wants to study, for example, technology subjects, it will be a significant boost in skills to go from a 2 to a 5 in science. After all, it is not just a number, but also talk about how much competence the student has after completing the education course. It should be a principle in the Norwegian school that you stretch as far as possible so that as many people as possible succeed. If you remove the opportunity to take up subjects and raise skills, you can at worst exclude an entire group from higher education.
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The right to better grades – Speech
