- 2021Design
- 2022Design
- 2023Legislative process
- 2024Completed
Background
Every year, more than a hundred thousand people in Norway apply for higher education, and there is reason to believe that more people will want to access this level in the future. Educational choices are one of the most important choices in life and in both upper secondary education and higher education there lies a responsibility for ensuring that higher education applicants can make informed choices. Therefore, it is important that the rules for admission to higher education are holistic and easy to understand. Today's admission regulations have changed and adapted to different needs since 2007 and the time has come for a complete review.
Objectives
The objective is to develop recommendations on new admission regulations for higher education.
The overall goal is to grant everyone equal opportunities to study. The choice of education should be determined by abilities and desires rather than social background. It is also a priority to make higher education more accessible and enable more people to attend continuing and further education. The goal is to attract more international students, and to have a better gender balance and increased diversity.
Description
The Norwegian government has appointed a committee of stakeholders to conduct a comprehensive review and assess the regulations for admission to higher education.
The committee is to make recommendations to the Ministry of Education and Research on the creation of understandable and flexible admission regulations, which ensure applicant legal rights, and can be adapted to the future of higher education and technological development. The new regulations are expected to:
- ensure that the admission regulations are easy, fair and readable for applicants;
- enable learners from upper secondary education and others to make informed educational choices, without any delays;
- contribute to the best possible use of human resources;
- contribute to an understanding of the competition for and the distribution of study places;
- ensure that the regulations contribute to covering the competence needs in working life and are not obstacles for a diverse and gender-balanced working life;
- ensure that they are efficient and digitisation friendly.
The committee was established on 22 April 2021. The committee consisted of members from pupil and student organisations, different directorates, principals, CEOs, and professors. The committee is expected to submit a suggestion at the end of 2022.
In December 2022, the committee published a report with suggestions to completely reform the admissions system for higher education at universities and university colleges. The suggestions were put out for public consultation until March 2023.
The consultation input were processed by the Ministry of Education.
In April 2024, new admission rules to higher education were approved to be implemented most of them from 2027, at the earliest, so future applicants can be well acquainted with the admissions rules before choosing subjects in further education. The main changes are as follows:
- reducing maximum possible additional credit points from 14 to 3 for taking science subjects in upper secondary school and military service;
- removing grade requirements for nursing studies;
- replacing the gender point for study programmes with an imbalance between the sexes by gender quotas.
There were no changes directly affecting students with a vocational education background. Two years (120 credits) of higher vocational education gives access to higher education at universities and university colleges.
Bodies responsible
- Ministry of Education and Research (KD)
Target groups
Learners
- Young people (15-29 years old)
Other
Thematic categories
Governance of VET and lifelong learning
This thematic category looks at existing legal frameworks providing for strategic, operational – including quality assurance – and financing arrangements for VET and lifelong learning (LLL). It examines how VET and LLL-related policies are placed in broad national socioeconomic contexts and coordinate with other strategies and policies, such as economic, social and employment, growth and innovation, recovery and resilience.
This thematic category covers partnerships and collaboration networks of VET stakeholders – especially the social partners – to shape and implement VET in a country, including looking at how their roles and responsibilities for VET at national, regional and local levels are shared and distributed, ensuring an appropriate degree of autonomy for VET providers to adapt their offer.
The thematic category also includes efforts to create national, regional and sectoral skills intelligence systems (skills anticipation and graduate tracking) and using skills intelligence for making decisions about VET and LLL on quality, inclusiveness and flexibility.
This thematic sub-category refers both to formal mechanisms of stakeholder engagement in VET governance and to informal cooperation among stakeholders, which motivate shared responsibility for quality VET. Formal engagement is usually based on legally established institutional procedures that clearly define the role and responsibilities for relevant stakeholders in designing, implementing and improving VET. It also refers to establishing and increasing the degree of autonomy of VET providers for agile and flexible VET provision.
In terms of informal cooperation, the sub-category covers targeted actions by different stakeholders to promote or implement VET. This cooperation often leads to creating sustainable partnerships and making commitments for targeted actions, in line with the national context and regulation, e.g. national alliances for apprenticeships, pacts for youth or partnerships between schools and employers. It can also include initiatives and projects run by the social partners or sectoral organisations or networks of voluntary experts and executives, retired or on sabbatical, to support their peers in the fields of VET and apprenticeships, as part of the EAfA.
Supporting lifelong learning culture and increasing participation
Lifelong learning refers to all learning (formal, non-formal or informal) taking place at all stages in life and resulting in an improvement or update in knowledge, skills, competences and attitudes or in participation in society from a personal, civic, cultural, social or employment-related perspective (Erasmus+, Glossary of terms, https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/programme-guide/part-d/glossary-common-terms). A systemic approach to CVET is crucial to ensure adaptability to evolving demands.
This broad thematic category looks at ways of creating opportunities and ensuring access to re-skilling and upskilling pathways, allowing individuals to progress smoothly in their learning throughout their lives with better permeability between general and vocational education and training, and better integration and compatibility between initial and continuing VET and with higher education. Individuals should be supported in acquiring and updating their skills and competences and navigating easily through education and training systems. Strategies and campaigns that promote VET and LLL as an attractive and high-quality pathway, providing quality lifelong guidance and tailored support to design learning and career paths, and various incentives (financial and non-financial) to attract and support participation in VET and LLL fall into this thematic category as well.
This thematic category also includes many initiatives on making VET inclusive and ensuring equal education and training opportunities for various groups of learners, regardless of their personal and economic background and place of residence – especially those at risk of disadvantage or exclusion, such as persons with disabilities, the low-skilled and low-qualified, minorities, migrants, refugees and others.
This thematic sub-category refers to providing the possibility for individuals who are already in the labour market/in employment to reskill and/or acquire higher levels of skills, and to ensuring targeted information resources on the benefits of CVET and lifelong learning. It also covers the availability of CVET programmes adaptable to labour market, sectoral or individual up- and reskilling needs. The sub-category includes working with respective stakeholders to develop digital learning solutions supporting access to CVET opportunities and awarding CVET credentials and certificates.
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Reviewing the admission regulation to higher education: Norway. In Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Timeline of VET policies in Europe (2024 update) [Online tool].
https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/timeline-vet-policies-europe/search/41552