5.1 Diversity and freedom of choice

5.1.1 The individual, not the average pupil

Young Liberals want an education that is adapted to each particular pupil. The schools must cultivate the differences between their students, and not have as a goal to put all pupils through the same material at the same time. All pupils shall meet challenges on their level every day.

It is not possible to succeed in adapted education as long as the pupils have no real influence on their own learning situation. The pupils have knowledge on what motivates and inspires, on which work forms that suit them best and which evaluation methods that best let the pupil show his competence.

5.1.2 Autonomous schools

Young Liberals want to release the schools and want autonomous schools where pupils, teachers, parents and representatives elected by the people manage the schools together. In this way the schools will gain anchorage in their communities and a sense of belonging will be created. Each school is to have a great degree of freedom in shaping its own training situation.  There must be national some national framework for the content of the education, but less dictation of details. The teachers must be given more educational freedom.

5.1.3 Free choice of schools

Young Liberals support the students’ right to choose their school. Pupils of the secondary school system must have the opportunity to choose the school they want to attend. This has to be done in a way that maintains an equal and geographically spread educational facilities. There has to be free choice of schools also in the primary school, so that parents can choose schools for their children. This does not mean that it is a public duty to establish new school classes or to provide school transportation for pupils who do not choose their nearest school.

Free choice of schools should be combined with the establishment of theme schools. This implies that schools specialize and seek to gain particular competence in specific fields.  This will give the pupils the means to choose their school on the basis of interests and abilities.

5.1.4 Public and private schools

Young Liberals want diversity in educational facilities, but think the public school is to form the better part of the educational system. To secure every student the right to choose their school, there has to be introduced a system of unit price financing. The money shall follow the student in the way that what a pupil would cost a public school can finance a place in a private school.  In the public school there has to be bottom financing to maintain vulnerable lines of study.

5.1.5 Pupil participation

One of the school's most important tasks is to teach the pupils about the duties, responsibilities and rights that come with living in a democracy.  The democracy training needs to be more integrated into the daily running of the school. Young Liberals want to enable pupils to be a part of shaping their school, by giving pupils the right of representation in the school's boards and committees and by strengthening the pupil council. The school's prioritising of means to the pupil council must be made public. The pupils are to be represented in all important decisions taken by the schools managing organs, including appointments of new staff. The schools must introduce systems that secure pupil participation in planning, implementation and evaluation of the education.

5.1.6 Career counselling and advisory services

A liberal school system with extensive freedom of choice presupposes that all pupils know of their possibilities. The counselling services must be divided in one part for career counselling and another for social counselling.  It is particularly important to strengthen career and educational counselling. Such counselling must be mandatory for pupils in the middle school and secondary school, and there must be established a compulsory education for career and educational counsellors.

5.1.7 Financing

Secondary school shall be free, and pupils are not to pay for educational material. Young Liberals want a material scholarship for all pupils. The size of the scholarship shall be dependent on the material expenses of the different lines of study. The basic scholarship should be removed in favour of a larger student grant for those living away from home and scholarships to pupils of schools with tuition fees.

The right to scholarships in secondary school must be counted in months instead of whole school years, in order for students who change the course of their education to be enabled to finish their education more easily.

5.2 The School as a Work Place

5.2.1 Physical education setting

The work place environment regulations for schools have to be followed up by an independent controlling body with sanction options towards school owners who do not follow regulations. The demands on air quality, temperature, lighting and noise level have to be clear. Young Liberals want to enable pupils to refuse to take part of education where the work place environment regulations are not met. This is particularly important in testing- and examination situations, where breaches on such demands are to be sufficient grounds for complaints.

5.2.2 Psychosocial education setting

The pupils’ right to involvement and the educational framework of the school can be more efficient as measures to prevent bullying in school than rules and campaigns. The schools have to be free to use these measures in the fight against bullying and in working with problematic pupils. There has to be a clear set of rules on how to follow up victims of bullying in school. The school health service has to be granted full financial coverage.

5.2.3 The Schoolteacher

The teaching profession has to be made more attractive. There has to be made room for a higher degree of specialisation during the teacher training, and the possibilities for post-qualifying education have to be strengthened. The teacher education has to prepare the students better for the meeting with a multi-cultural school reality. The schools and the teachers have to get more freedom to regulate the working hours of the teachers. Seniority alone should not be vital in hiring, promoting and dismissing educational staff. Principals have to be employed for a term of years and be educationally competent.

5.2.4 Organisation of the School Days

Young Liberals mean it is natural to let the pupils meet in learning groups independent of age, and support flexible basis groups and support the dissolution of the school class model.

Fixed schedules are limiting the pupils. Young Liberals want a flexible system that allows flexible working hours and more flexible days in project periods. Young Liberals support modul based training as a means of individually adapted training.

5.3 The Content of the School

5.3.1 Teaching Aids

Textbooks are not to be commercially financed. In secondary school other commercially financed teaching aids can be allowed. The training is to put to use those instruments at hand that societal development allows for.

Young Liberals mean that the pupils themselves are to choose which teaching aids, including textbooks, they want to use in their education. Pupils learn in different ways and should therefore be allowed to choose teaching aids with different approaches to the material.

5.3.2 Curricula

The curricula have to be less extensive and detailed. Individually adapted training depends on the pupils experiencing and learning to master different work methods. Young Liberals mean that this has to be decided between teacher and pupil, and that the curricula therefore should not contain demands on method, only on variation and width.

Young Liberals only want the broad political guidelines to be decided by politicians. The academic part of the curricula is to be decided by a professional body.

5.3.3 Study- and Work Plans

Pupils need a varying degree of freedom in their own educational situation. Young Liberals want to implement individual study- and work plans that will provide a possibility to individually adapt the training to each single pupil. This will work as a tool that provides the basis for individual follow-up between school, pupil and parents. The plans are to define where the learning process is to take place and absence protocols will thereby be superfluous. 

5.3.4 Evaluation

The formal form of evaluation in school is the grade with no written comment. Young Liberals mean the evaluation also has to consider the right to individually adapted training, promote learning by providing pupils with an opportunity to improve their work and thereby increase the insight in the learning process and guarantee the pupils’ legal protection by giving them a real chance of complaining on the teachers’ evaluation. The teaching institutions are to choose for themselves what kind of evaluation they want to use.

Today’s form of examinations has to be abolished and replaced with a system of portfolio assessment. This will ensure the learning promoting and summarizing function of the evaluation. Portfolio assessment will provide better grounds for setting grades and a more exact picture of the pupil’s full competence. This system, however, depends on the pupil’s right to send their portfolios to external evaluation if they do not agree with the final grade. It has to be the responsibility of the individual school to decide the content of the portfolio in the different subjects, be it school tests, long and short written work or practical tests.

The pupil is also to have the right to be evaluated in a final exam. Then the examination is to form the final grade.

5.3.5 National Tests

Young Liberals mean the national tests are to be used primarily to map the single pupil’s premises and needs, and form the basis of individually adapted training. The national tests therefore have to take place in the beginning of the school year. The tests are not to be used as part of an end grade.

Young Liberals mean the national tests have to work as a quality assurance of the individual school.

5.3.6 New Norwegian

It is the goal of Young Liberals to preserve and strengthen both Norwegian and New Norwegian, and do not want New Norwegian to be optional in school. It is not necessary with a separate exam and grade in New Norwegian, it is more important to strengthen the Norwegian subject in school as a whole.

Young Liberals mean it is important to generalize the use of New Norwegian. Using New Norwegian as a language of instruction in more subjects, having language divided textbooks and strengthen New Norwegian as a part of the teacher educations are good measures.

5.3.7 Subjects in School

The level among Norwegian pupils in scientific subjects is too low. The interest of these subjects has to be strengthened already in primary school. It is important to implement an individually adapted form of education where every pupil meets challenges.

The school has to adapt for daily physical activity on every level. The theory of the Physical Education subject has to become a part of Natural- and Environmental studies. In Physical Education the grade has to be passed or not passed.

Social Economy has to be implemented as a mandatory subject in middle school and secondary school, to strengthen the social economic understanding among the population.

Young Liberals want to re-establish and extend the arrangement of optional subjects in middle school. This will give the pupils a greater chance to develop their personal interests. The optional subjects are to be counted equally with mandatory subjects.

5.3.8 Vocational Studies

A growing number of people change vocation several times during their professional life. To ensure a wide competence it is necessary with a certain amount theoretical training also within vocational studies. The theory has to be adapted to the specific line of study. Schools should provide a third alternative with greater weight on practical work training during the two last years of secondary school.

The apprentice time is a part of the education of vocational pupils and is to be a public responsibility.  It is a public responsibility to make sure there are enough apprentice-training places for pupils, through removing the payroll tax for apprentices or by providing other perks for companies taking in apprentices.

Apprentices experience a lack in clearly defined rights. Apprentices are to enjoy discounts on public transportation as other pupils in secondary school.

5.4 Higher Education and Research

5.4.1 Admission to Higher Education

The educational institutions are to be given the freedom to choose which criteria to demand for the basis of admission. Different tests, assignments and interviews can be used. Where grades are a vital or partial part of admittance, the institutions have to specify which grades are emphasizes at admittance. Young Liberals want the individual institution to decide whether they want to accept students through the collective student admission program (Samordna Opptak).

5.4.2 The Universities

Governmental control of the universities has to be eased, to make the universities far more autonomous. A possible model for higher organisational freedom is making the universities independent foundations.

Young Liberals are sceptical towards a further approximation between universities and colleges. While the colleges are to be occupationally directed, the universities hold an important function in academic education. The universities also hold the role as free distributors of opinion in society. Young Liberals are sceptical towards the idea of establishing more universities as long as the economical situation of the existing universities is not improved.

5.4.3 Learning and Evaluation

The educational system is to be adapted to the individual student. The traditional method of examination should in many cases be replaced by other forms of evaluation.

Young Liberals want a more problem based learning process, continuous evaluation, project work, practice and closer contact with scientific environments and the working life. The arrangement with possibilities of further education on a postgraduate level has to be continued.

Mandatory lessons should not be much used. There always has to be a possibility for choosing not to follow lessons and instead take the exam as a private candidate. The price of choosing to take an exam as a private candidate must not be unreasonably high.

To ease the availability of further education, Young Liberals want a greater supply of remote education with better access to guidance and more subjects to choose from.
   

5.4.4 Research

There has to be a larger focus on scientific research both nationally and internationally. The universities should conduct good basic research and provide research in a variety of subject, while the colleges should specialize in applied science and in building regional world class research communities.  There should be a special focus on research within areas where Norway has special qualifications. There has to be established more Centres of Remarkable Research. 

5.4.5 Student Financing

Young Liberals want to connect the student financing to the National Insurance Basic Amount  (G). The student financing is to correspond to 2G for all full time students, independent of place of residence, income and financial wealth. This is to form the student’s guaranteed minimum income.  Until this system is implemented the financial support from the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund has to be changed into an equivalent system consisting of 50 % loan, 25% scholarship and 25% that is converted into scholarship by a normal study progression speed.  Students with a study progression speed above normal have to be given a corresponding part of the loan as a scholarship. The study loan interest has to stay below the market interest at all times. Students have to be given the choice between getting a monthly payment and only one payment in the beginning of each semester. Financial support should also be given for June.

There shall not be any school fees on public higher education. A copy charge can only be accepted as long as one only has to pay for what one actually prints and copies, and as long as there are always free paperless alternatives available.

5.4.6 Student Owned Welfare Organisations

Young Liberals are positive towards the Student Owned Welfare Organisations providing student welfare services as a supplement to public offers. The Student Owned Welfare Organisations must have a student majority in the board. The Student Owned Welfare Organisations must stick to their core business, and not take advantage of their competitive advantages to private actors. Young Liberals are against educational institutions being forced to be part of a Student Owned Welfare Organisation.

Student housing is an important part of student welfare. More student housing need to be built, especially in places where student housing coverage is low. 

5.4.7 Students Abroad

Young Liberals mean the scholarship programmes for Norwegian students choosing to take part or all of their education abroad need to be improved. There has to be given full scholarships to cover tuition fees.  There must be no differentiation on the grounds of line of study, country or degree. The government should take the full currency risk for the entire financing amount. Young Liberals mean that Norwegian students abroad are to have the same rights as students at Norwegian institutions. As long as the arrangement of extra money support for children kept out of kindergarten exists, this also has to apply to Norwegian students abroad.

Norwegian educational institutions have to set a large quote for students from poor and less developed countries. Young Liberals mean Norwegian universities and colleges should offer to take in students from countries where students and intellectuals are being persecuted.