New directorate to promote coordination, coherence in HE and skills
Norway is to launch a Directorate of Higher Education and Skills on 1 July, and has announced the appointment of Sveinung Skule as its director-general. “A main goal is to contribute to greater coordination and coherence within the area of higher education and skills policy, across vocational schools, university colleges and universities,” Skule told
University World News.
Another goal was to “administer a broad array of programmes and measures efficiently to the benefit of the education sector and working life. Internally as well as towards relevant sectors, we must continue to develop digital ways of working that we established during the pandemic.”
Education agencies reorganised into mega-directorate
The ministry is merging smaller governmental units on 1 July to create a large directorate for higher education as part of an ongoing process of reforms in the educational system in Norway from kindergarten to lifelong learning, the ministry has announced.
Following the announcement on 4 February, the following units are being merged:
• DIKU, the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education, with 130 full-time staff and headquarters in Bergen.
• Skills Norway, the present Directorate for Lifelong Learning, with 170 staff members and offices in Tromsø, Bergen and Oslo.
• Parts of UNIT, the Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education and Research, which has 200 employees and headquarters in Trondheim and an office in Oslo.