10% of All Students in Norway Attend Online Education

The Norwegian government has announced that a large number of students are now attending online classes.

In a statement issued on May 10, the government announced that nearly ten per cent of all students who are now enrolled choose elective education opportunities rather than campus-based studies, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

In this regard, the Minister of Research and Higher Education, Ola Borten Moe, said that the demand for flexible education is growing.

“Many want to study where they live and combine education with work and family. This is a necessary development, ” he also noted.

According to the government, Norway has a lot of human power and skills shortages, so there is a great unmet need in the labor market.

“We now have a very good labor market. This means that we must get more people into work, at the same time as those who are already in work must be offered professional replenishment. Therefore, we must reach more people with flexible education, ” Borten pointed out.

In 2021 there turned out to be a little more than 294,000 students in flexible education, which meant there was an increase of 13 per cent from 2022. On the other hand, online offers are also responsible for growth.

The increase in online studies has been significantly noticed in the spring number of university applicants.

In addition, this year, Norway has generally received 34 per cent more first-choice applicants for solely online studies at the university than its language one year ago.

In 2021, Norway had 305,000 students enrolled in higher education, including police, defense, and private institutions, without funding from the Ministry of Education. It also means there is a four per cent increase over 2020 with about 12,000 students.

This increase in the number of students shows that due to the pandemic, there was not much opportunity for students to be able to work, take a year off or even study abroad.

The Norwegian government has revealed that after a few years of being in the country without a drop in temporary staff teaching and research positions, in 2021, these figures rose slightly from 12.6 to 12.7 per cent.

Minister Moe also stressed that the institutions should have a lot of work to do, whereas according to him, the sector of a temporary nature should be reduced.

Moreover, the ministry has recently commissioned an analysis task to provide more insight into the relationship between temporary work and external research funding.

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