In this situation, it is understandable that the National Government and our society in general are concerned with "lifelong learning" or "learning for life", meaning that all members of society should have access to relevant courses to continually update and develop their knowledge and competencies, see Meld. St. 14 (2019-2020) (only available in Norwegian). In other words, the expectations are high for the University in general, and for our Faculty and our disciplines in particular.
Given that we will contribute with continuing educational courses in lifelong learning, many questions arise, such as:
- In which areas should we contribute?
- What should the academic content be?
- How should we manage and organize the courses?
- How can we meet the need for a greater degree of flexibility among students who also are full-time employees?
There are some general educational premises that also should apply to lifelong learning. Credits (ECTS) are a measure of work effort and must have the same meaning for students participating in continuing educational courses as well as for our regular students. The administrative framework for our continuing educational courses should have many of the same qualities as the framework for the regular study programmes and at the same time take into account the special conditions around lifelong learning. We should focus on offerings in areas where we have specialist expertise that to a lesser degree is available elsewhere. And we should primarily focus on long term knowledge.
An unresolved issue is how continuing educational courses should be financed. The principle of free education is a key premise for the regular university educations. At the same time, the main rule has been that continuing education courses must be fully funded by the students themselves, which leads to dilemmas when the same study courses are available for both regular students and students in our continuing education courses.
Despite these dilemmas, our Faculty offers a broad range of continuing education courses (website only available in Norwegian) for both school and the business sector. This autumn, a new course for school teachers – "Programming to strengthen the science" (programmering for fagets skyld) (website only available in Norwegian) – will start. A collection of micro courses will also be available – "From data to insight – growth for a green future)".
All indications point towards our portfolio of continuing education courses will grow significantly in the future. This is the reason why our Faculty actively works with establishing solid framework conditions for such offers, in collaboration with the central leadership of the University of Oslo.