1. OECD Reviews of Migrant Education: Norway
OECD DIAGNOSIS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
Deborah Roseware and Miho Taguma gave a very nice presentation of the land report on Norway at our national launch on June 10th. The timing was not accidental, since this took place during the informal ministerial meeting in Norway. We had a seminar for all those who had contributed to the report. Miho has very kindly offered me to use her PPTs for this presentation.

2. Focus of the Presentation Today
Diagnosis: Key challenges for Norway
Some of the suggested policy options to address these challenges

3. Diagnosis: Key challenges for Norway
Questions
Good balance between universal and targeted measures?
When targeted, …
who should be the priority target groups?
what should be the priority target areas to focus on?
I would also like to add; how do we make sure that universal measures we make take into consideration that we now have a multicultural school? How do we ensure that this aspect is included when making new universal measures?

4. Priority target groups Where can the biggest gaps be observed?
Comments to the figure: pay attention to the participation in ECEC at the age of 3 – significantly lower for immigrant children than native children. However, participation in ECEC at the age of 5 is much higher – actually 95 % of immigrant children go to kindergarten. When we look at reading performance at 4th grade and at the age of 15 immigrant students preform significantly worse than majority students. When it comes to upper secondary school, immigrant students have higher drop out rates than native students, especially first generation immigrant students. Drop out is especially a problem for vocational upper secondary programmes. The question is than; where is it more effective with universal measures and where do we need targeted measures?
The OECD specifically point out students that arrive to Norway late in school age as one targeted group.
Source: Statistics Norway 2008 (ECEC); PIRLS 2006 (Reading performance in primary school); OECD PISA 2006 (Reading performance in lower secondary school); Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training Completion and retention in upper secondary)

5. Socio-economic backgrounds
Priority target areas/factors What can be the factors that may explain the gaps?
Socio-economic backgrounds
Language
This actually tells us that the socio –economic background of the child can explain quite a lot of the variety of why immigrant students have a lower reading score than native students. This means that we need to discuss which politics that can compensate for social background. Further more, the table shows that a significant explanatory variable also is language spoken at home, indicating that a focus on language training also in necessary (targeted).
Source: OECD PISA 2006
Note: statistically significant differences are marked in a darker tone.

6. A set of policy suggestions: Based on evidence of what works, and experiences of other countries
Early childhood education and care
Schools and communities
Teachers and school leaders
Language support
Vocational education
Learning environments at home
System management
Regional variations
Monitoring and evaluation
I will comment upon some of these policy areas – do not have the time to og into all suggestions.

7. Early childhood education and care
Capitalising on…
Political will and financial commitment towards universal and affordable access for all
Strong focus on language development in early years
Norway could…
Improve access to quality early childhood education and care for all, especially immigrant children under age three.
Policy options
Set up monitoring systems for access and quality in ECEC
Reduce economic barriers that discourage immigrant parents from participating in ECEC
Develop programs that work more closely with immigrant parents and communities
Norway has had a high political focus on ECEC and we now have a full coverage of kindergarten places. There is also introduced a right to kindergarten place. There is also introduced a maximum prize, and in some areas free core time in kindergarten. OECD points at the fact that younger immigrant children are not participation to the same extent as the 5 year -olds. OECD suggests now that the focus should be not only on access, but also quality in ECEC. Reduced economic barriers are also highlighted as important.

8. 2. Schools and communities - Teachers and school leaders
Capitalising on…
Political support for raising teacher competencies and qualifications
Norway could…
Encourage schools to be more responsive to the growing linguistic and cultural diversity of students. Improving the capacity of teachers and school leaders is the top priority.
Policy options
Train all teachers to be able to… (Priority skills - formative assessment, second language acquisition, incorporating students’ cultures/previous experiences into teaching, working with families and communities)
Train school masters to lead in a culturally diverse setting.
Promote a whole-school approach in respect of migrant education.
When it comes to teachers and school leaders, the OECD suggests that all teachers should be able to teach in multicultural classrooms, have second language acquisition etc. Since we in Norway are now remaking our teacher education, this policy suggestion is very timely, and is actively being used to influence the new teacher education to include knowledge of teaching in culturally diverse settings and second language acquisition. OECD also suggest to train school masters to lead in a culturally diverse setting and to promote a whole –school approach in respect of migrant education.

9. 3. System management– Regional variations
Capitalising on…
Strong commitment to local control
Emerging system of accountability
Norway could…
Strengthen accountability of schools and promote knowledge sharing among municipalities and schools.
Policy options
Consider setting achievement targets for improving outcomes for immigrant students.
Support peer-learning opportunities and networking among teachers
Provide leadership and management training to municipality and county leaders
How do we reach out to the class room? How do we change the practice? This is the 100§ question. OECD says that at a national level the legislation and political will is quite strong in Norway, but that we need to work on the implementation of the new curriculas, the legislation etc.

10. 3. System management– Monitoring and evaluation
Capitalising on…
Participation in international testing and growing use of student assessment within the country
Growing practice of evaluation, documentation of results and use of the results for improvement.
Norway could…
Monitor progress and use formative evaluation at all levels – classroom, school and system.
Policy options
Encourage municipalities to work with schools to use evidence of what works in a formative way at the system, school and classroom levels
Monitor concentration and alleviate potential negative effects though monitoring school capacity and evaluation of school practices
Knowledge based teaching – what works? Lots of good intentions and measures but how do we know if they work?
Just visited a city in Norway which is rethinking their way of organizing the teaching. Today they have a reception school before the children join ordinary classes. They are now considering to decentralize the model and have reception classes at local schools. The arguments are integration matters and results – they want to give a better quality of the education. However, when asked to inform about today's learning outcome at the reception school, they can’t answer. In other words they discuss to reorganize the system, without knowing if the system of today actually works or not (at least when it comes to learning outcome). This is a very illustrating case.