The Norwegian Education Mirror 2022

Completion of upper secondary school education

More and more complete upper secondary school education

The number of young people completing upper secondary school education has never been higher. Since the first National Curriculum cohort began in Level Vg1 in 2006, the proportion of young people completing upper secondary school education has increased each year. The completion rate has increased by over 8 percentage points during the period 2006–2015. Adjusted for cohort size, this means that each year there are 5,000 more young people completing upper secondary school education with university and college admission certification or professional qualifications.

8 out of 10 complete within two years of the standard time

80 per cent of pupils who started upper secondary school education in 2015 (2015 cohort) completed within two years of the standard time.

Pupils in general study programmes complete to a greater extent than pupils in vocational training. Of the 2015 cohort, 89 per cent of pupils on general study programmes and 70 per cent on vocational training programmes completed. The completion rate varies between the different vocational training programmes, from 78 per cent in Electrical Engineering and Computer Technology to 51 per cent in Restaurant and Food Processing.

About the statistics

Results from primary and lower secondary school can decide whether a pupil completes upper secondary school

Low grades from primary and lower secondary school are the most important single explanation as to why a pupil does not complete upper secondary school education. Family background has an indirect effect, as on average pupils will get better grades in primary and lower secondary school if their parents have completed higher education than pupils whose parents do not have higher education (Statistics Norway 2022c).

Among pupils with between 25 and 29 primary and lower secondary school points, 35 per cent of pupils complete general study courses and 51 per cent complete vocational courses. Among pupils with between 40 and 49 primary and lower secondary school points, the proportion of those who complete increases, to 94 per cent of pupils on general study courses and 93 per cent on vocational courses.

Pupils with few primary and lower secondary school points complete vocational training courses to a greater extent than general study programmes. An explanation for this can be the organisation of vocational courses, with smaller groups and more opportunities for adapted education, allowing more people with poor results to succeed. There are also many pupils who handle the practical education and experience they get from vocational courses better than theoretical school subjects (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training 2018).

Pupils with more than 40 primary and lower secondary school points are just as likely to complete, whether they are on a vocational course or a general study programme. The main reason for the fact that more people complete general study programmes than vocational courses is that there are more pupils with many primary and lower secondary school points who start general study programmes than vocational courses.

Most complete in Sogn og Fjordane and Akershus

The proportion of pupils who complete successfully is highest in Sogn og Fjordane (85 per cent). Akershus, Rogaland and Møre og Romsdal have a successful completion rate of around 83 per cent. With 70 per cent, Finnmark has the lowest proportion that complete successfully. However, Finnmark has had some very good development in recent years; since the 2006 cohort, the completion rate has increased by 18 percentage points.

Sogn og Fjordane and Rogaland also place highly when we take parents' level of education into account. Looking at pupils whose parents have upper secondary school education as their highest level of education, 84 per cent of pupils from Sogn og Fjordane and 80 per cent of pupils from Rogaland and Møre og Romsdal complete within two years of the standard time. In Finnmark, that figure is 69 per cent.

There are still large differences between the counties when we take pupils' results from primary and lower secondary school into account. In Buskerud and Finnmark, 36 per cent and 29 per cent of pupils with less than 30 primary and lower secondary school points complete within two years of the standard time respectively, while the equivalent figure in Aust-Agder is 51 per cent. There are fewer county differences among pupils with good grades. For pupils with more than 50 primary and lower secondary school points, there are just 3 percentage points between the counties with the highest and lowest completion rates.

All counties have increased the proportion who complete and pass in the period, and for all counties this increase occurs in both general study and vocational subjects.

Girls complete to a greater extent than boys

85 per cent of girls complete upper secondary school education within two years of the standard time, as opposed to 76 per cent of boys. The main reason that girls complete to a greater extent than boys is that boys, on average, have poorer primary and lower secondary school performance. Boys and girls with the same number of primary and lower secondary school points complete upper secondary school education to approximately the same extent.

Pupils with migrant backgrounds do not successfully complete to the same extent as other pupils

Pupils with migrant backgrounds complete upper secondary school education to a lesser extent than other pupils. This applies especially to pupils who themselves have immigrated; the completion rate for these pupils is 64 per cent. 78 per cent of pupils born in Norway to immigrant parents successfully complete.

Completion rate for other pupils is 83 per cent.

Norwegian-born girls with immigrant parents successfully complete to the same extent as girls in the rest of the population. On the other hand, Norwegian-born boys with immigrant parents have a lower completion rate than both Norwegian-born girls and other boys in the population. The gender difference is also large between immigrant boys and immigrant girls.

Immigrant categories

Many of those who do not complete achieve a partial qualification

Many of those who do not complete have still completed parts of their upper secondary school education, and thus have a partial qualification that they can build upon later. Some only lack a few grades in one or two subjects, while others lack large parts of the education.

5 per cent of the pupils who started Level Vg1 in 2015 have the "completed, not passed" status two years after the standard time. These pupils have either completed Level Vg3, but lack grades in one or more subjects, or they are apprentices who have completed their period of training, but have not passed their qualification examination. Many of these pupils and apprentices will complete and pass at a later stage.

Furthermore, 3 per cent of these pupils are still in education. This proportion is largest in vocational training, where 4 per cent are in education 6 years after starting Level Vg1. These can be pupils or apprentices who have changed their chosen subject, had an interruption in their training or had a delay between school and an apprenticeship. There may also be pupils who have been delayed in completing the qualification examination.

Just under 3 per cent of these pupils have completed with planned basic competence. These pupils take planned courses that provide competence at a lower level than full professional competence or university and college admission certification. Many of them have individual statements for special education in one or many subjects, and do not have education according to all the competence aims in the curriculum. In the completion statistics, these pupils are not marked as "completed and passed", even though they may have completed their planned course. In Restaurant and Food Processing, 16 per cent of pupils with planned basic competence complete, while the equivalent proportion in Sports and Physical Education is 0.4 per cent.

Some pupils end their education before Level Vg3 or before they have completed their apprenticeship. In total, 9 per cent of pupils have the status "quit" two years after the standard time. Design and Crafts has the highest proportion of pupils who have quit, with 23 per cent.

Low proportion leave or change their chosen subject in the transitions between stages

Pupils mainly leave or change their chosen subject in the transitions between stages in upper secondary school education. 5 per cent of pupils are not in upper secondary school education the year after Level Vg1. After Level Vg2 there is a further 4 per cent, 9 per cent in total, who do not continue to Level Vg3 in school or to an apprenticeship with a company. Most of those who quit, attend vocational courses in Level Vg2.

Good opportunities for completing upper secondary school education throughout life

In Norway, 84 per cent of the population has successfully completed upper secondary school education before the age of 25. This is 3 percentage points higher than the average in OECD countries (OECD 2021).

There are good opportunities to complete upper secondary school education even if it has not been done within two years of the standard time. After ten years, the proportion of those who have completed increased by 10 percentage points (2011 cohort). The completion rate from five/six years to ten years increases the most on vocational courses. 73 per cent of pupils in the 2011 cohort who started vocational courses had completed after ten years. This is 13 percentage points higher than the proportion who had completed after five/six years. 92 per cent of pupils on general study courses had completed after 10 years, 6 percentage points higher than after five/six years. The proportion of pupils who complete general study programmes increases more among boys than among girls, while on vocational training programmes, the completion rate is about the same for both genders. In total, 83 per cent have achieved university and college admission certification or professional qualifications after 10 years.