My first impressions of the life-style of Youth & the Educational system of Norway - BY GEETA

I am so glad that I had an opportunity to travel to Oslo, the capital of Norway, during the autumn vacations. Oslo is the world's most expensive city, it is as big as Bangalore but has just 1/7th of Bangalore's population & almost 22% are immigrants.

It was quiet interesting to stay with students who had been to India in the previous years & see their life-style here. Most of the students living here are staying away from their families, renting an apartment with some other students or friends (reasons being - universities & higher education schools are located in big towns & cities, normal to stay away from home after high school). Its like everyone has to think for themselves, make decisions & manage their economy, households, studies, jobs(many students take up part-time or week-end or summer jobs to supplement their study scholarship that they get from the state).

I was very much attracted to this statistics: literacy(more than just knowing to read & write their names)-100%, male-100%, female-100%. It is because of the special interest that the State takes in education.

The primary & high schools are run by the State & FREE. The students can also apply for scholarship in case of difficulties, for books & study material & also home-away allowance in case they are staying away from home even during their high school(approx age:15 to 19 years).
Every student gets 80,000 Norwegian Krone's when they start with the folk school or university, out of which 38,000 is scholarship & 42,000 is loan(without interest) which they have to pay back only when they start working(then starts their interest depending on the time they use to pay back the entire loan of their education).

I really appreciate this system of education and also its positive outcomes like, support to each & every student to be educated without any differences, possibility of making choices for their higher education & also providing the capacity to be independent. But it has its own negatives like it has weakened family bonds to some extent, the burden of loan, making them very individualistic(this does not mean that they don't care for others)..

When I place myself in this situation, I find it so difficult to imagine, to move away from my family at the age of 15/16 & managing all the chores by myself. Even now I feel so glad that I am living with my parents back home & all the students here are so surprised when I say this to them, since it is not at all "normal".

It would be nice if all of you gave a thought to this kind of system & also our system of education(in terms of its access to each & every individual, private v/s government, its quality, career options) & you could share your views with me. These are just my first impressions & I am going to do my personal project on the educational system of Norway & try to understand much more in detail.

My stay is getting more & more interesting, with different experiences. Its not always serious stuff, its very nice with the parties also, which are very different from India. I could either go for a booze party or just sit in my corridor & have a cup of tea with some friends & yet call it a party. It's fun with this simple way of partying, you should try it sometime.