Norway offers introductory classes to help get children who move from overseas get up to speed with the country and the local language before joining the mainstream education system.

However, public broadcaster NRK reports that a tweak to the rules means that children aged between 16 and 18 can slip through the cracks and be left waiting nearly a whole year for a school place.

A law change in 2021 tweaked which authority was responsible for integrating young foreigners into Norway and the school system.

A change in the regulations means that those aged 16-18 who will attend a Norwegian high school (vidaregåande skole) may be forced to wait an entire year to be admitted if they arrive in the country after county authorities have handled the annual admissions process.

As a result, it also means that they may be forced to wait to attend a course on Norwegian social studies and language training as the county they live in is only obliged to offer this at the start of their education rather than within three months of arriving, as was the case with the old rules.

“It surprises me that there are no politicians who demand that these young people get a normal schooling,” Ida Enebakk de Santillana, who works as an advisor on integration in Rogaland county municipality, told NRK.

“There is a loophole in the legislation which means that many people have the right to start further education, but at the same time, the county councils are not obliged to take them in outside of the normal admission process,” she added.

Norway’s integration directorate (IMDi) has said it was aware of this issue.

“The problem is nationwide. But it is difficult to measure the extent,” Benedicte Barkvoll, a department director from the IMDi, told NRK.

Earlier this year, the IMDi released a report stating that the regulations on the responsibility to provide an education to young people who move to Norway were not clear enough.

Local authorities in Norway can dedicate additional resources to try to admit students to schools outside of the traditional admissions windows and also have them put on integration courses.

KS, the orgainisation representing local authorities in Norway, said it had raised the issue with the government. It said counties worked hard to ensure that they admitted children onto integration courses and into schools, but that capacity and resources were limited.

“The county municipalities are putting in a lot of effort to make this happen, but the capacity is starting to fill up. They need more resources to give more people an offer,” Kristin Holm Jensen, from the department of education, culture and upbringing in KS, told NRK.

The government told NRK that it initially changed the rules so that young people who move to Norway would be start school and integration courses at the same time as a group of peers.

It added that government directorates were in the process of collecting all the relevant information to make the regulations clear to municipalities and county councils.