Statistikk innhold
Statistics about
Activities of adult learning associations
The main purpose is to show education arranged by popular education organizations from different angles. The aim is to reveal the total course activities, give information on course level, choice of subjects, as well as age and gender of the participants.
Selected figures from this statistics
- Popular education organisations. Number of courses, participants and lessonsDownload table as ...Popular education organisations. Number of courses, participants and lessons
2024 2020 - 2024 Change in per cent Courses 48 058 37.9 Both sexes 578 804 54.9 Males 233 648 43.7 Females 345 156 63.5 Lessons total 1 294 775.50 34.8 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Number of courses, participants and lessons by organizationDownload table as ...Number of courses, participants and lessons by organization
2024 Courses Participants Lessons total Total Males Females Total 48 058 578 804 233 648 345 156 1 294 775.50 The Workers' Education Association of Norway (-2023) 0 0 0 0 0.00 The Adult Learning Association for Agriculture and Community 2 291 23 475 16 468 7 007 44 099.00 Adult Education Association of Christian communities and organizations in Norway 6 806 62 692 27 835 34 857 150 848.75 The Study Association Funkis 8 645 80 571 22 309 58 262 156 880.25 Association for studies of culture and traditions 7 558 63 289 15 498 47 791 227 243.00 The Sports Education Foundation 3 401 46 786 27 817 18 969 41 620.00 The Adult Education Association of Music 5 931 87 325 35 561 51 764 304 269.25 The Sami Adult Education Association 50 330 74 256 3 609.00 The Adult Education Association of the Centre Party 786 4 623 2 441 2 182 12 674.25 The Adult Education Association of Solidarity 371 2 450 786 1 664 62 031.00 Study association for Lifelong Learning 4 687 69 099 31 025 38 074 167 233.00 The Adult Education Association of Nature and Environment 4 447 37 305 16 188 21 117 83 352.00 The Adult Education Association of the Liberal Party 598 3 818 2 083 1 735 7 928.25 The Academic Association for Adult Education 2 487 97 041 35 563 61 478 32 987.75 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Number of courses, participants and lessons, by subjectDownload table as ...Number of courses, participants and lessons, by subject
2024 Courses Participants Lessons total Total Males Females Total 48 058 578 804 233 648 345 156 1 294 775.50 Language studies 535 4 525 1 487 3 038 23 035.75 Aesthetic subjects and handicraft 16 958 197 202 66 808 130 394 687 463.75 Humanities, philosophy and ethics 5 893 62 666 28 608 34 058 119 621.25 Social sciences 842 21 434 6 860 14 574 21 152.75 Organization and management 8 540 131 676 58 246 73 430 110 212.50 Business and ICT 459 5 114 2 174 2 940 3 830.00 Health, social and sports 9 723 91 290 29 268 62 022 202 105.50 Transport and communication 59 1 380 855 525 1 057.00 Science, industry and technical subjects 1 168 27 781 20 207 7 574 26 729.50 Natural resource management, ecology, environmental protection and outdoor recreation 3 867 35 587 19 074 16 513 98 109.00 Goods and services 14 149 61 88 1 458.50 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Number of participant, by organizations and ageDownload table as ...Number of participant, by organizations and age
2024 Participants 14-29 years 30-49 years 50 years or older Total 578 804 160 979 149 665 268 160 The Workers' Education Association of Norway (-2023) 0 0 0 0 The Adult Learning Association for Agriculture and Community 23 475 7 380 9 278 6 817 Adult Education Association of Christian communities and organizations in Norway 62 692 40 373 9 437 12 882 The Study Association Funkis 80 571 3 716 11 524 65 331 Association for studies of culture and traditions 63 289 21 696 5 988 35 605 The Sports Education Foundation 46 786 21 863 18 583 6 340 The Adult Education Association of Music 87 325 10 378 16 191 60 756 The Sami Adult Education Association 330 84 98 148 The Adult Education Association of the Centre Party 4 623 433 1 524 2 666 The Adult Education Association of Solidarity 2 450 646 738 1 066 Study association for Lifelong Learning 69 099 26 371 15 369 27 359 The Adult Education Association of Nature and Environment 37 305 13 074 12 264 11 967 The Adult Education Association of the Liberal Party 3 818 673 1 312 1 833 The Academic Association for Adult Education 97 041 14 292 47 359 35 390 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Number of participants, by subject, age and sexDownload table as ...Number of participants, by subject, age and sex
2024 Participants 14-29 years 30-49 years 50 years or older Total 578 804 160 979 149 665 268 160 Language studies 4 525 872 2 494 1 159 Aesthetic subjects and handicraft 197 202 41 089 32 029 124 084 Humanities, philosophy and ethics 62 666 44 258 5 042 13 366 Social sciences 21 434 3 663 10 135 7 636 Organization and management 131 676 35 521 52 741 43 414 Business and ICT 5 114 803 1 198 3 113 Health, social and sports 91 290 11 188 23 634 56 468 Transport and communication 1 380 230 546 604 Science, industry and technical subjects 27 781 11 350 9 970 6 461 Natural resource management, ecology, environmental protection and outdoor recreation 35 587 11 961 11 832 11 794 Goods and services 149 44 44 61 Males Total 233 648 76 198 62 361 95 089 Language studies 1 487 310 849 328 Aesthetic subjects and handicraft 66 808 15 702 10 200 40 906 Humanities, philosophy and ethics 28 608 21 800 2 093 4 715 Social sciences 6 860 1 177 2 986 2 697 Organization and management 58 246 16 159 23 969 18 118 Business and ICT 2 174 392 668 1 114 Health, social and sports 29 268 5 094 7 763 16 411 Transport and communication 855 138 324 393 Science, industry and technical subjects 20 207 7 603 7 574 5 030 Natural resource management, ecology, environmental protection and outdoor recreation 19 074 7 807 5 919 5 348 Goods and services 61 16 16 29 Females Total 345 156 84 781 87 304 173 071 Language studies 3 038 562 1 645 831 Aesthetic subjects and handicraft 130 394 25 387 21 829 83 178 Humanities, philosophy and ethics 34 058 22 458 2 949 8 651 Social sciences 14 574 2 486 7 149 4 939 Organization and management 73 430 19 362 28 772 25 296 Business and ICT 2 940 411 530 1 999 Health, social and sports 62 022 6 094 15 871 40 057 Transport and communication 525 92 222 211 Science, industry and technical subjects 7 574 3 747 2 396 1 431 Natural resource management, ecology, environmental protection and outdoor recreation 16 513 4 154 5 913 6 446 Goods and services 88 28 28 32 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Number of participants, by examination and levelDownload table as ...Number of participants, by examination and level
2024 Total Option of public examination Option of other valid examination or certificate Option of internal examination Option of vocational examination No examination or final tests Total 578 804 2 698 23 752 6 568 504 545 282 Primary level 255 633 1 153 13 561 2 913 0 238 006 Secondary level 245 550 1 385 8 719 1 592 504 233 350 Higher level 3 159 160 60 237 0 2 702 Not reported 74 462 0 1 412 1 826 0 71 224 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ...
About the statistics
The information under «About the statistics» was last updated 18 March 2025.
Adult education
Education specially arranged for adults.
Subject
The courses are grouped after school subjects in accordance with Norwegian educational terms.
Level
The popular education organizations can offer courses on primary, secondary, and tertiary educational level in addition to many other courses.
Lessons
One course lesson is 60 minutes. Breaks of up to 15 minutes per hour are included.
Courses offering examination
Meaning to be a supplement to subject and level. Several courses arranged by popular education organizations give students the possibility to take an examination.
Classification of subject groups is worked out by Statistics Norway together with The Ministry of Education and Research, The Norwegian Association for Adult Education, Norwegian Association for Distance Education and Folk High School Council.
County is based on the classification of county municipality.
Name: Activities of adult learning associations
Topic: Education
Division for Education and Culture Statistics
The statistics are given on national and county level. It is also possible to order tables on municipal 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 main purpose is to show education arranged by popular education organizations from different angels. The aim is to reveal total course activities related to course level, choice of subjects and age as well as gender of the participants.
The statistics about course activities for popular education organizations started 1996 and were financed by The Ministry of Education and Research. The statistics has been published yearly since then and is financed by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills.
Users are the Ministry of Education and Research, the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills, other public services, researching institutions, media, the Norwegian Association for Adult Education and the association "Kompetanseforbundet", as well as individual popular education organizations.
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.
This statistics is a part of statistics of adult education in Norway.
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 programme for official statistics, topic Education, sub-topic Adult education.
All approved popular education organizations receiving grants report on course completions to Statistics Norway.
Each participant are reported by course subject, place of residence, and aim group in addition to course level, duration, and time when they started and finished the course.
The statistics are based on electronic reports from popular education organizations and include the entire population of these organizations.
Per 1 March in the year of census data is collected from the popular education organizations. After correcting the data, Statistics Norway put all files together to one basic file, on which the statistics are based.
Editing is defined here as checking, examining and amending data. All received data files undergo various controls, such as deleting duplicates and checking variables for valid values. In case errors are discovered, the popular education organizations will be contacted for corrections. Statistics Norway makes test tables based on corrected data, so the individual organizations get the possibility to compare own figures.
Statistics about popular education organizations is summarily only, and special analyses are not executed.
Employees of Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality.
Statistics Norway does not publish figures if there is a risk of the respondent’s contribution being identified. This means that, as a general rule, figures are not published if fewer than three units form the basis of a cell in a table or if the contribution of one or two respondents constitutes a very large part of the cell total.
Statistics Norway has published statistics on popular education organizations since 1997. The statistics for the period 1997-2009 includes courses of at least 12 lessons, but the statistics from 2010 includes courses of at least 8 lessons and is still comparable with the statistics of today.
Because of the corona pandemic,there was a temporary exception with regard to the number of instruction hours and courses lasting at least 4 hours were included in 2020. The new regulations regulating adult learning associations approved by the Ministry og Education and Research and the regulation regulating adult learning associations approved by the Ministry of Culture and Equality entered into force January 1st, 2021. They specify that from 2021, courses have to last at least 4 hours.
Until the reporting for the year of 2022, the adult learning associations reported the number of hours rounded to the nearest whole number, while hours are reported with decimals from the reporting year 2023.
Until 2010, one cours lesson lasted for 45 minutes. From 2010 and onwards, a course lesson is defined as 60 minutes, but breaks of up to 15 minutes per course lesson are included.
The Workers' Education Association of Norway (Studieforbundet AOF) filed for bankruptcy on July 2, 2024. Parts of the bankruptcy estate were taken over by Akademiet videreutdanning. Akademiet and the former member organizations AOF Vestlandet-Agder and AOF Østlandet became members of the Adult Learning Association for Agriculture and Community on September 24, 2024, and reported to this association from that date. Course activities that are entitled to grants organized by AOF Vestlandet-Agder and AOF Østlandet from January 1, 2024, to July 2, 2024, have been reported by the Adult Learning Association for Agriculture and Community. Courses organized from January 1, 2024, to July 2, 2024, for the other parts of the Workers' Education Association of Norway are not included in the statistics for 2024.
Mostly, errors can be traced back to data repported by the popular education organizations. Errors in coding of course completions might occur and it can be difficult to assign subject codes and level for the courses.
Statistics about popular education organizations include courses receiving grants only, and do not reflect the whole education activities.
Sampling errors and non-response errors are not relevant as the statistics are based on data from all popular education organizations.
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. For these statistics, no preliminary figures are published.