Urdu speakers make up largest foreign language group in schools

In the autumn of 1996 Urdu was the most spoken native foreign language in Norwegian primary schools, followed by English and Vietnamese. In recent years, however, there has been a marked increase in the number of foreign-language speaking pupils from areas in the former Yugoslavia. Bosnian/Croatian and Albanian were respectively the fifth and seventh largest foreign language groups in primary schools.

Nearly 3,800 pupils listed Urdu as their mother tongue while English and Vietnamese speakers both totalled 2,300. The number of Bosnian/Croatian speakers was 1,800, Albanian 1,400.

A total of 28,200 non-native-speaking pupils were registered in primary schools in the autumn of 1996. This was nearly 2,300 or nine per cent more than in 1995 and is triple the number recorded in 1986. Foreign language-speaking pupils made up less than six per cent of the pupils. Nearly 48 per cent were girls.

New Statistics

Education Statistics. Primary schools, 1 September 1996.
Statistics are published annually in the Official Statistics of Norway (NOS) Education Statistics, Primary Schools. More information: Kurt Jonny Einarsen, tel. +47 62 88 52 67, e-mail: kuj@ssb.no or Undis Dahl, tel. +47 62 88 52 78, e-mail: uda@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 27, 1997