This report follows people in three different groups throughout the educational process. These groups are people born between 1987-1989, 1992-1994 and between 1997-1999. This delimitation is made both to study a sufficient number of people, and to take into consideration various educational reforms.
The report covers primary and lower secondary school results, transition from lower secondary school to upper secondary education, subject choice in upper secondary education, participation in universities and colleges, completion of universities and colleges, and the highest level of education achieved.
We found that regardless of which group we looked at, those who did not immigrate to Norway have higher average lower secondary school points and higher overall achievement marks in Norwegian, English and mathematics than immigrants. We also found that those who immigrated when they were five years or younger had higher results than those who immigrated when they were six years or older. For national tests, it is still the case that those who did not immigrate to Norway perform better than the immigrant groups. English is the test where the two immigrant groups score the highest, while reading is the test where they score the lowest.
We see that immigrants have a slightly lower proportion who do not directly transition to upper secondary education and that the proportion is lowest among those who immigrated when they were six years or older. Immigrants also have a larger proportion who are not registered in upper secondary education at all. Students from Asia including Turkey have the highest proportion with direct transfer while students from Africa have the lowest.
Immigrants choose to a greater extent the program “study specialization” in upper secondary compared to students who did not immigrate to Norway, with one exception: boys who were six years or older at the time of immigration. If we compare boys who were older and younger than six years at the time of immigration, then there is a much larger proportion of the older boys who chose vocational education.
The smallest difference in participation in higher education between those who did not immigrate to Norway and immigrants aged 5 years or younger when immigration is found among the group born in 1997-1999, while the largest difference is found in group born in 1992-1994.
The proportion who have not completed a degree within 8 years is the lowest among those who did not immigrate to Norway. This applies to both the 1987-1989 cohort and the 1992-1994 cohort. This means that a larger proportion of immigrants, regardless of age at settlement, have not completed a degree in higher education within 8 years. The numbers show that men generally have a higher proportion who have not completed any degree compared with women.
Overall, we see that the level of education varies to a greater extent between the immigration groups, than between immigrants and those who did not immigrate to Norway. Those who were 5 years or younger at the time of immigration have largely the same pattern as those who did not immigrate to Norway, with relatively equal proportions of completed university and college education.