AUF triumph at the national meeting: Scrapping the school subject absence limit
Erling Marthinsen 05/05/2023 12:42

Classroom with a view. Photo: Marielauvdal, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

The youth party AUF secured a major victory at the Labor Party’s national meeting: the school subject absence will be scrapped.

This means that the right-wing’s strict absence limit will be removed and replaced by a new, national absence regulation, says AUF leader Astrid Hoem to VG.

The proposal has not yet been formally adopted at the national meeting, discussions have started, as is usually the case when solving problems in Ap.

It was the Solberg government that introduced the absence limit in 2016. With 10 per cent absence in a subject, students lost the opportunity to get a grade.

There were some who considered the absence limit an attempt to prevent immigrants from sending their children to their home country for months. But most teachers have been positive, since the pupils actually turned up at school more regularly than before the rule was introduced.

It is unclear which scheme Ap will introduce as compensation.

We don’t know that yet. The most important thing for us is that the rigid Conservative system, which has lasted far too long will be removed.

Hoem is aware that the 10 percent rule will disappear,with focus being on more trust in the students, the education will be more knowledge-based.

Støre made it clear in his speech that everything invented by the right must be removed.

We will not have a right-hand border, said Støre.

Oddly enough, this does not apply to a massive expansion of the state apparatus and a national disaster as a result of energy policy. But for the absence limit, it is from the far right and must be removed!

I am concerned that we have clear rules for attendance at school. We will also have that going forward, says Education Minister Tonje Brenna.

Labor Party’s incoming deputy leader will have clear rules by removing the clear rules, that is. As an education minister without an education, Brenna comes across as untrustworthy here, although one can of course be very wise without an education.

The goal is for the rules to be less rigid and bureaucratic, fairer for students and contribute to more people completing upper secondary school, says Brenna.

In a world where, so to speak, everyone must be forced into upper secondary school, dropouts will naturally increase and the level of education will be lowered. Then as many as possible will be forced into idiotic subjects at universities and colleges, leading to a race to the bottom.

Personally, I had massive absences at the gymnasium, mostly because I found school rather boring and uninteresting, but also because I was on countless sporting trips. The fact that I overslept and was a B person also contributed, as discipline was non-existent.

But in a long working life, I have only had absences due to hospital stays and the births of my children. The discipline came from sports and the Armed Forces, which had not yet fallen into disrepair. Long before Hoem was born.

I’m not sure what I think about the absence rule. After all, the worst students are unable to learn anything regardless of measures. In my opinion, half of the students should not complete upper secondary school, so that the level could be raised considerably.

It is better to have 10,000 well-educated young people than 30,000 mediocre ones who then study gender theory or some other nonsense.

Ola Svenneby is leader of Unge Høyre and is of course dissatisfied.

First of all, it is cheap populism and it is impossible to understand what Ap wants in school policy. They are against the absence limit, but for an absence regulation, he says to VG.

It does not seem as if anyone in Ap has had ideas on education policy for several years, which is not about reversals. Norwegian students lose out on that.