Overnational assessments have for many years shown that Norwegian school pupils are performing increasingly poorly, and that reading and writing skills are at rock bottom. At the same time, our politicians have worked – in a manner that almost appears deliberate – to accelerate the decay.

The school system in Norway has not been ruined by a lack of reforms or “innovation”, but because of them: Far too many educational policy changes have been initiated by politicians and parties that have had a form of political, ideological, or value-based self-interest.

The result has become a school in which pupils are to be taught to “speculate” a little about everything, particularly if they speculate “correctly” for the teacher and wider society.

The collapse bears the fingerprints of the Liberal Party (Venstre): Even when other parties have held the ministerial office, it has often been Venstre’s educational ideal – more reform, more value governance, and less academic obligation – that has pulled the school in the wrong direction.

The Knowledge Promotion Reform – which became the fall

In 2004 a new school reform was underway. New curricula were to be created in all subjects to replace R-94. The new curriculum was given the name Kunnskapsløftet (“The Knowledge Promotion Reform”).

As a teacher at the time at Bondelia Upper Secondary School in Gjøvik, I was fortunate – or unfortunate – enough to be selected to provide local input into the reform. There were many capable colleagues who took the work seriously. But most of us probably already had a feeling – deep down – that most things would nevertheless be decided elsewhere: in the ministry, the directorate, or the bureaucracy.

At that time we were still somewhat idealistic. Our meetings concerned the subject itself: How could the new curriculum make pupils more capable? How were we to give them more knowledge? How would we as teachers obtain a basis for assessing them fairly and precisely?

This was many years ago now, and it has been a long time since I was a teacher in Gjøvik. It is a period I remember with pleasure, but I have a sense that I left the teaching profession just before upper secondary education was ruined by various politicians’ zeal for reform, driven forward by ideological hobbyhorses.

Since then I have followed schools and educational policy, particularly through my involvement with examinations, marking, and work with private candidates. What I have seen is not encouraging:

Over time, pupils’ academic knowledge has gradually weakened. Not necessarily from one year to the next. The clearest declines occur from one curriculum to the next. With each reform, the teacher receives new documents, concepts, and ambitions to relate to. And with every reform the pupils become increasingly weakened – both academically and in terms of confidence and identity.

Norwegian educational policy does not strengthen schools. It removes their foundations

For many years, changes that were supposed to elevate the school system have been applauded: Teachers had to receive more formal competence, together with further education and lengthy educational programmes. A “group master’s thesis” about, for example, John Dewey was supposed to change everything for everyone!

The measures have not merely proved useless, but have had the opposite effect.

Master’s degree requirements for teachers have, astonishingly enough, made the pupil population less intelligent, not more capable. New curricula have not produced more knowledge. Increasingly political and value-laden language has likewise not given pupils better skills in reading, writing, or arithmetic – even though “arithmetic” was written into the competency requirements in both history and religious studies. It appeared absurd at the introduction of Kunnskapsløftet – and it still appears absurd today. It was supposedly about “being able to calculate in religious studies” meaning “being able to use statistics, tables, and other numerical material”.

Surely this is sufficiently covered in mathematics? Or why should it be emphasised that it is precisely in religious studies that it should concern arithmetic skills?

The curricula in Norwegian schools have contributed to making the basis for assessment for a teacher or examiner almost impossible.

Norwegian

In the Norwegian subject, the literary canon, language history, literary history, and precise textual understanding have almost been eradicated. Pupils are expected to know a little about a “self-chosen text” within a literary epoch and to “have opinions” about identity, culture, Sami identity, Norwegian identity, and diversity. That may well be interesting and meaningful in a conversation at a café or pub, but it is not the same thing as mastering Norwegian as an academic subject.

A pupil today should naturally still know Ibsen, Bjørnson, Wergeland, Garborg, Snorre, and Hamsun. A pupil should also be able to analyse a short story. A pupil should know what literary devices are. A pupil should be able to write in reasonably grammatically correct language.

The latter requirement has not been self-evident since the “curriculum renewal” – or perhaps already since Kunnskapsløftet.

Religious studies

The same has occurred in the subject of religion and ethics, a subject I know well: Previously, as an examiner, I could ask a private candidate fairly detailed questions about doctrines of salvation in Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. I could expect the candidate to know something about the Catholic sacraments, the doctrine of non-self in Buddhism (an-atman), sacred texts, central religious practices, and concepts.

The latest curriculum has swept all of this away, and the textbook authors from the major publishing houses have made it worse: Now the pupils are expected above all to know about the Sami, sociology, dialogue, and identity politics. The textbooks do not provide them with conceptual or academic foundations for any of this, but instead encourage speculation about “life, the world, God, and stuff like that …”

Many examination candidates therefore have no idea about the subject in which they are being examined, even though the curriculum still claims they are supposed to know the academic concepts. In the textbooks for upper secondary school, the chapter on Christianity has been reduced to seven pages. But of course: It is possible that the pupils become slightly better at speculating about everything else – and thereby speculating “correctly”. (God help them if they speculate incorrectly!)

The system’s error

When curricula become unclear, teaching naturally also becomes unclear. When knowledge objectives are hollowed out, the basis for assessment for the teacher or examiner is likewise weakened. When subjects are transformed into attitude production, it becomes impossible to know what is actually supposed to be known. Consequently, we now have “grade inflation” in schools – statistics showing report cards with either uniform top grades or low passing grades. No newspapers or media outlets report any longer on the boy or girl who received only top marks on their certificate – for that has become everyday fare at most schools.

At the opposite end of the scale, no teacher wishes to impose additional public costs by failing a pupil. Hence the low passing grade proliferates.

What would actually be remarkable in our day is if a pupil in upper secondary education graduated with a set of grades consisting solely of middling marks. That would be something to write home about!

New times, new values?

Naturally schools should teach pupils the ability to live together in a diverse society. That is important! The Sami are given very great emphasis in the curricula in almost all subjects, including religious studies.

What is not mentioned is that the Sami people actually received the Bible in their own language before we Norwegians did: It was translated from Danish by the Sami Lars Hætta while he was imprisoned in Oslo penitentiary after the Kautokeino Rebellion.

In the textbooks, however, a distorted idea is presented that the Sami beat ceremonial drums and worship ancestors. That is completely and utterly wrong, and in fact an insult to the Sami people. But it is an idea that fits the image certain politicians wish to communicate to children and young people. The average Sami today is far more confessingly Christian than the average Norwegian.

Knowledge should be liberating, not dangerous

It has been said that schools should be relevant. Very well. But what is more relevant than being able to read a text? What is more relevant than being able to write? What is more relevant than understanding the history, religion, literature, language, and society in which one lives?

Many pupils in the ninth year of compulsory schooling can neither write, read, nor point out where Denmark or Austria are on a map of Europe. Therefore the many reforms must be reversed:

Subjects must have clear competency requirements. They must have a canon. One must learn something before one can have an opinion, not the other way around.

At the same time, educational politicians scratch their heads over why pupils are becoming less intelligent. But then look at the curricula you yourselves have adopted! Look at the reforms you continually initiate. By all means check every concrete curriculum objective that has been removed from the R-94 framework – or earlier – to today! The curricula have been decimated many times since those who are now aged 45+ attended school.

What Norwegian schools need least of all is politicians attempting to “patch up” the decline in knowledge with new reforms initiated by fine words about “renewal” and future “promotions”.

We do not need more “Venstre schools”. We need a school of knowledge!