KD hearing 15/4145

Hearing regarding proposed changes to the university and university college act. Source (in Norwegian). The hearing deadline is the 16th of December 2015.

Diploma bank

Ministry of Education and Research (KD) wants to establish a database of diplomas. The purpose behind this database is for individuals to more easily share their results and achievements to a potential employer, or other who might have need for them. This way the recipients can trust that the merits are correct.

The database, called vitnemålsbanken (diploma bank), is supposed to contain a minimum of information necessary for the service to function. The information collected from the database should, as far as possible, be retrieved from the original datasource, i.e. the different education institutions. In effect this means that diplomas will not be stored in the diploma bank, but serve only as a system to retrieve them. The diploma bank will only contain information pertaining to which institutions/sources that contain the results for which individuals, i.e. you birth-number connected to an ID-code pointing to a educational institution’s database.

Possibilities for a person to reserve against registration in the national diploma bank has been discussed. Since it is up to each individual to control disclosure of the results, and because the merits are conveyed through the diploma bank at the subject’s initiative, the ministry deem there to be no need for a reservation system.

Appeal system for SIUs grants

Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education (SIU) is a national competence- and information centre established to coordinate and promote international education throughout the whole education. SIU is a governmental body subject under the administration of KD. As of now, there are no specific regulations regarding SIU’s operations.

The proposed changes introduces specific regulations for SIU. Roughly translated they are

New § 5-4 shall read:
§ 5-4 Appeal system for SIU
(1) SIU is an national competence- and information centre which shall work to coordinate and promote international educational cooperation through the whole education. SIU is an administrative subject under KD.
(2) SIU makes decisions regarding funds within announced applications. The appeal court is the contracting entity which SIU performs the task for. The appeal court may not overrule SIU’s technical assessment of the facts regarding distribution of funds. The ministry may create regulations pertaining to the procedures and legal remedies for this provision.

NOKUT’s model for accreditation and supervision

NOKUT (the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education) is an independent expert body under the Ministry of Education and Research (KD). The proposed changes aim to state more clearly NOKUT’s responsibility to oversee the educational institutions’ overall quality.

Appeals regarding preliminary examinations

KD suggests the possibility to decrease the appeal period from three weeks to one week for preliminary examinations in order to avoid a delayed start in studies. This appears to be a change of little to no consequence for SiN.


KD hearing regarding board model changes – preliminary reply

We have written a brief hearing reply to KDs proposed changes of the university board model after e-mail exchanges with the SiN board, a meeting with DION, and discussions with the leader of Studenttinget at NTNU. The proposed changes are briefly summarised in the last post. Given the short time to process this hearing we have tried to avoid expressing controversial opinions.

The reply discourages KD from reducing the 2/3-majority vote needed to change the board composition or introducing an external majority to a simple majority vote. It also questions the intent of opening up for an external majority in the first place. The rest of the reply is meant to encourage KD to re-formulate the law to be more clear regarding the board composition.

As the deadline is this Saturday, please take the time to read through the note (and propose changes) at your earliest convenience. I apologise for the outrageously short deadline.​

Our preliminary reply is available here (in Norwegian only).


KD hearing regarding board model changes

As some of you might’ve​ read on universitetsavisa.no (UA), Kunnskapsdepartementet (KD) released a hearing (link) regarding proposed changes for the university and university college (høyskole) boards (current regulations). Though no radical changes are proposed, what is alarming is the way the hearing has been presented. The proposed changes were first published on June 26th, with a hearing deadline August 15th. KD also did not include SiN in this hearing.

SiN will be writing a formal complaint that we were not included in the hearing, as well as commenting on the questionable hearing deadline.

Read More


Invitation SiN AGM 2015

Hi folks!

The Annual General Meeting this year will be held in NTNU campus (Trondheim) on Thursday 28th of May. The day after, SiN and DION have the pleasure to invite you to a seminar in “Career, politics and development” with two nice speakers: Hebe Gunnes (NIFU) and Kari Melby (Pro-rector of research, NTNU). Everyone interested in attending, please check information and conditions in the link below (invitation document) and let us know ASAP.

SiN AGM 2015 – Invitation


Iranian PhDs and postdocs affected by Visa rejection by the Norwegian government

As it can be read recently in the news, iranian students and workers in Norway are having issues with their visas due to a new agreement of the government in order to protect policies of spying and spreading information about weapons. Iranians affected by this have started a group called SEDAI: https://www.facebook.com/SEDAI.Event?fref=ts. They plan to sue the government since the reason for rejection are not specific enough, so they are trying to build themselves up as an association to be able to open a bank account and take the case to the court.