Adults in primary and lower secondary school

Participant

A person who, during the reference period, was registered by a municipality, school, or adult education center as a participant in primary and lower secondray school for adults according to section 4A-1 of the Education Act.

Adults in primary and lower secondary school

Section 4A-1 of the Education Act states that adults in need of primary and lower secondary school training have an individual right to education. Adults who cannot benefit satisfactorily from regular education are entitled to special education under section 4A-2 of the Education Act. The municipality is responsible for providing such education.

Module-structured education

Module-structured education (hkdir.no) involves organizing the education into smaller units. Participants are to be assessed and placed in the module that best matches the competence they already possess. The levels range from module 1 to module 4. In addition, there is a basic module for participants who have not previously learned to read and write.

Immigrant

Individuals who are born abroad to two foreign-born parents and have four foreign-born grandparents.

Norwegian-born with immigrant parents.

Individuals who are born in Norway to two foreign-born parents and have four foreign-born grandparents.

Country Background

Own, or possibly mother's, father's, or grandparents' foreign country of birth. For individuals born abroad, this is (with few exceptions) their own country of birth. For individuals born in Norway, it is the country of birth of their parents. In cases where the parents have different countries of birth, the mother's country of birth is chosen.

Age
Age of participants according to the Standard for Age Classification.

Name: Adults in Primary and lower secondary school

Subject: Education

Section for Education and Culture Statistics

National and county level

Annual

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The statistics Adults in primary and lower secondary school aim to identify who the participants are, how the education is conducted, and how the participants who start the education fare.

The data is collected through mandatory reporting from municipalities and adult education centers. In the autumn of 2022, Statistics Norway (SSB) conducted a pilot reporting where adult education centers and municipalities reported all adult participants in primary and lower secondary school. This data collection resulted in the article "Hvem er deltakerne i grunnskoleopplæring for voksne?" which was published in August, 2023.

In the autumn of 2023, the first regular data collection was conducted, and the statistics Adults in primary and lower secondary school was first published in March 2024.

Users of the statistics are key authorities such as the Ministry of Education and Research (KD), the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion (AID), the Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir), and the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training (Udir).

Municipalities, educational institutions, researchers, students, and the media are also among the users.

No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

The statistics can also be seen in connection with statistics such as Pupils in primary and lower secondary school, KOSTRA - Municipal Stat Reporting, Adult education, Introduction programme for immigrants, Norwegian for Adult Immigrants, and Lifelong learning.

Data on adults in primary school education are collected annually in the database Grunnskolens informasjonssystem (GSI) (udir.no). The data here is not collected at the individual level, as in the Adults in primary and lower secondary school statistics.

The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).

The statistics are part of the national program for official statistics 2024-2027, in the main area of Education, the sub-area of Primary Schools, emphasizing that the statistics cover adult participants in primary schools.

Not relevant

The statistics for adults in primary and lower secondary school include information about each participant, reported by the municipality or adult education centre to which the participant is affiliated. The statistics cover all those registered as participants in the relevant period/school year. It provides information about the participant's sex, age, and country background. Information about modules, subjects, number of lessons and status of education are also collected.

The statistics are based on information which the municipality or adult education centre has reported to Statistics Norway, via Altinn. The reporting is mandatory.

Data Collection
Statistics on participants in adult education are based on information reported by municipalities or adult education centres to Statistics Norway (SSB). The information is reported on a form prepared by SSB for these statistics.

Editing

Editing is defined here as checking, examining and amending data.

When reported to SSB, the data are initially checked whether the form is filled out correctly and if there are any obvious errors. After the data is machine-readable, more detailed controls are conducted, in addition to controls against the previous survey and other available data. All Personal ID-numbers are checked for errors and subsequently pseudonymized.

Not relevant

Interviewers and everyone who works at Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality. Statistics Norway has its own data protection officer.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures where there is a risk of identifying individual data about persons or households.

More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.

A pilot reporting was conducted in 2022. After the pilot reporting, an evaluation report was published in 2023. As a result of this evaluation, several changes were made from the data collection in 2022 to the data collection in 2023, documented in the evaluation report.

Some errors related to the collection and processing of data may occur. These can be code errors, revision errors, errors in data processing, etc. However, work has been done to minimize such errors.

A revision is a planned change to figures that have already been published, for example when releasing final figures as a follow-up to published preliminary figures. See also Statistics Norway’s principles for revisions.