The Admissions Committee will remove all degree requirements

registration

The Admissions Committee will remove all special education class requirements, including mathematics and Norwegian requirements to become a teacher.

Today, just over 38 percent of courses in Samordna have special entry requirements. admissions committee who made their recommendations on Thursday You think all these special requirements should be removed.

The most famous and politically controversial are the requirements in mathematics and the Norwegian language to enter the primary school teacher training.

Today, the requirement is at least grade 3 in Norwegian and the common subject in mathematics and at least 40 school credits in a high school diploma. Alternatively, you can take 35 school credits, at least 4 in Mathematics and 3 in Norwegian.

– We are in favor of removing all requirements for special degrees, because it will not be possible to take up subjects, Commission Chair Marianne Assen tells NRK.

Another example is nursing education, which requires at least 3 in Norwegian and in the common subject mathematics.

You only want school credits

Pedagogstudentene leader Lars Strande told Syrrist Khrono that they agree with the admissions committee that subject grade requirements for primary school teacher training should be removed.

There should be reasonably high requirements for teacher training. We want an average requirement of 40 high school credits, but no special requirements for individual subjects, he says.

The Minister for Research and Higher Education, Ola Borten Moe, said this about the abolition of degree requirements:

– We have to think carefully about it and internalize it, but if we choose to go this way, it is not abnormal. We have to look more closely at this, he said on NRK Friday morning, and it’s not something the government or I have come up with in any way.

For the Conservative Party, the introduction of grade requirements for teacher education was a matter of heart.

– We have good experience with the grading requirements set for student teachers, they contribute to better completion of studies and thus also better preparation of students, says Jan Tore Saner, former Minister of Knowledge and now a member of the Parliament’s Education and Research Committee.

You want a simple form

In the report, the admissions committee justifies the elimination of the degree requirement by saying that they want a simple and comprehensive admissions model, in which general study skills are the main entry point to higher education. Today’s degree requirements require that those who do not have good enough grades can take up the subject as a private person, an arrangement the committee recommends be removed.

The committee further writes that finding solutions to adapt grade requirements into the new model will make the admissions system more complex, for both applicants and institutions.

There is also reason to point out that the aim of introducing grade requirements was often to increase status and employment in education, rather than the level necessary for completion of schooling. The result in many cases was that study places were left empty because there were not enough applicants who met the requirements, according to the commission’s report.

Furthermore, the Commission stresses that it is the responsibility of institutions to ensure that students obtain the proficiency they need to practice the profession for which they are training.

– If the subject is passed from secondary education, this indicates that the applicant has the necessary competence to be able to start higher education, the commission wrote.

He wanted to raise the status

In 2005, the Ministry introduced grade requirements and minimum school points for teacher training based on the desire to enhance the quality of education, attract the best candidates and raise the profile of the teaching profession.

Starting with admissions in 2022, the government has changed the requirements, so that they are now broader in scope and you don’t necessarily have to have a Grade 4 in Mathematics. The aim was to give more people a chance to qualify for primary school teacher training.

Norway needs more teachers. With this change, admission requirements are broader and provide more qualified applicants. We will still place high demands on our future teachers, said Ola Borten Moe (Sp) when the changes were adopted, but without excluding applicants with high GPAs and whose strength lies in subjects other than mathematics.

From admission to the 2018/2019 academic year, the Ministry has also introduced score requirements in Norwegian language and mathematics for nursing courses. Here, the rationale was to raise the quality of education and the students’ ability to perform.

Others have submitted their own degree requirements, such as NTNU for five-year integrated master’s programs in technological subjects.