In this section, we will extract institutional approaches and methods, which seem to sustain some promising practices that we observed. This is done with a view to pinpoint practices that may be transferred to other contexts and even to other countries. Below, we will briefly sum-marise these approaches and methods for each institution where we conducted interviews.
Oslo Adult Education/ Sinsen
The many individual rights for students coupled with a very diverse group of learners, lead the school to target its motivational work very neatly and learners with low motivation are tightly followed up. Given that students’ problems in passing their exams are often related to their social life in general, the school is offering extracurricular activities held by instructors, who often are retired teachers. All in all, the fine-tuned pedagogical activities organised in the school fall in line with priorities of State education policy. The pedagogical approach applied at the Sinsen department of Oslo Adult Education seems to be well defined within the entire organisation of OAE.
Oslo Adult Education/ instruction in Norwegian and social science for immigrants Our interviews in one of the three schools offering such instruction shows that OAE is able to offer formal training, which necessarily implies some theory, but also practical instruction implying that students feel they master something. The practice and qualification programmes represent a break from theoretical instructions and the opportunity to become qualified for a job functions as a major motivational factor, particularly for participants who recently have learned to read or write. In this environment, it is crucial that those who instigate changes affecting actual or future participants, do this through conversations with leaders of adult education institutions, the teaching staff and students from the different sections of OAE.
Oslo University College
The present co-funding of one administrative post in the university college is linked to an obligation to disseminate the experiences gained as well as research and related issues concer-ning diversity in higher education. Furthermore, the dissemination is done by issuing a web based newsletter and giving lectures on various occasions. The newsletter has subscribers nationwide. The fact that experiences and development of knowledge at Oslo University College is disseminated and linked to similar work being done all over Norway, adds to the sustainability of the model. The integration of the model in European networks points in the same direction. Experiences since 1996 sparked off by the pedagogical centre of OUC, have been summarised and further developed into a handbook issued by autumn 2008.
The University of Oslo
The Adaption Service and the services offered by the Foundation for Student Life are statu-tory provisioned, and it seems that the university is highly concerned with assuring that these services function well for the students.
Institutional practices that go beyond the statutory provisioned services, e.g. arrangements at the university to follow up certain student groups, could be allocated an earmarked sum.
Otherwise, they may be given low priority when the university has to save money. In times of austerity, administrative units and initiatives for social inclusion that are not defined as statutory provisioned may become vulnerable.
The Association for Adapted Adult Education
Feedback from the participants was given at the last meeting during the two years’ course.
This evaluation was conducted in the same way as the rest of the course had been arranged, allowing the participants to express themselves orally. The feedback suggests that the project has been important for acquiring information on different approaches adopted by parents in order to improve the living conditions of children with some disabilities, for breaking taboos on having such a child and for reducing the feeling of being an isolated parent in a unique situation.
Folkeuniversitetet
A crucial challenge for the organisation in the coming years is that it remains able to offer educational services with the same preamble as the Adult Education Act of 1976. To live up to this, a couple of actions seem pertinent for the organisation, i.a. making sure that the institution offers what individuals and businesses are demanding. This involves going out to people, speaking with them and afterwards developing training in a broad range of areas, before presenting (tailor-made) courses to potential users.
The prison
In view of the structural constrains emanating from the difficulty to balance security and opportunity of attending education, it appears that the prison has managed to get much out of this dilemma. This has been mainly been achieved by linking the prison education to public institutions and the services they offer. The principal institutional arrangement is that prison education in Oslo is set up as a department within Oslo Adult Education. Alongside other correctional services, the one in Oslo collaborates with the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) in terms of labour market training. An asset for prison education is the opportunity for prisoners enrolled in training courses to make use of public library services.
By such institutional arrangements, the high security prison is positioned in such a manner that prisoners who are willing to study can benefit from some universal public services offered by the Norwegian welfare state.
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