Fewer foreign students

Last year, 113 foreign students were taking their entire education at the Norwegian Academy of music (NMH), according to DBH, a data base for statistics for higher education. This year, the number is 85. Since 2002, the number has gone down with 195 per cent.

– I think that a lot of people believe that there is a lot more prestige at other schools, for example in Stockholm, says Eline Fahlstrøm from Sweden. She decided on NMH because one of her previous teachers had studied here, and she is very pleased with the decision. But, she says:

– When you are young and have to decide on what school to choose, a lot of people probably focus on prestige rather than on good teachers. I think that the Norwegian Academy of Music had benefited on sending their teachers abroad to teach, thus marketing the school. Also, she adds, more classroom tuition in English would very likely attract more international students.

However, Aslak Wøllo Sørgaard, leader of NMH’s student committee, does not think that it is necessary to bring about any specific actions in order to attract foreign students.

– I believe that it’s more important to try to raise the quality of the school’s tuition. If we do that, the foreign students will want to go here, he says, and rejects at the same time the notion that NMH isn’t at an international level.

Director of Academic Affairs, Kjetil Solvik, says that it is not until this year that there has really been a decrease to speak of, and that the earlier numbers have been wrong due to misunderstandings surrounding the numbers of foreign students reported to DBH.

– The foreign students are accepted on equal terms as the Norwegian students, which is through entrance examinations. This year, fewer foreign students made it through, says Solvik, who doesn’t think that the decrease has got anything to do with foreign music students not wanting to go to Norway.

– Still, the school is not marketed abroad at all, which means that students at undergraduate courses seldom know about the school. On postgraduate courses, however, there are plenty of applicants. We have quite a lot of teachers who are on teacher exchange programs, and they are vital when it comes to advertising the school.

Next week the school will have a meeting in order to discuss the possibility of organising more tuition in English.

– At the moment, there is close to nothing. That is why most of the foreign students at the undergraduate courses are Swedish, says Solvik.