Silence on language proposal

One and a half years ago, a proposal on language policy at the University of Oslo was published. So far, only one of the recommendations has been followed up.

Kristoffer Hatteland Endresen Kristoffer Hatteland Endresen
Ketil Blom
Ketil Blom Ketil Blom Ketil Blom (foto)
Jana Kristensen
Jana Kristensen Jana Kristensen
Publisert Sist oppdatert

The committee on language policy at UiO

  • The committee was set up in October 2005, in order to accommodate the demands that followed in the wake of the University of Oslo’s ambition to become an internationally acknowledged venue for education and research.

Underlying principles:

  • The University of Oslo has a responsibility to ensure and develop the Norwegian technical language.
  • Dual Language Bilingual Education should be a main principle where students and staff alike are urged to learn foreign languages at top level, while at the same time making sure that Norwegian continues to be the main language.
  • The financing scheme and other incentive factors must put publications written in Norwegian on a par with publications written in English.
  • There should be introductory course books in Norwegian on the reading lists in all subject areas.
  • The language of communication in administration at UiO is mainly Norwegian. The committee wants to promote specific motions in order to adjust this principle to the demands made by that internationalisation.
  • The committee recommends concrete measures to ensure a good administrative language in relation to all target groups. It is suggested that the University Board follow Denmark’s example and found one (or more) research centres for language at the University of Oslo.

– I find it very strange that the University of Oslo (UiO) does not set up a practice based on these recommendations. After all, that was why we composed to proposal in the first place, Helge Hveem says.

Last year, Hveem was in charge of a committee looking at language policies at the University of Oslo. The result was published on 31. March 2006, and included 30 concrete measures on how to increase the internationalisation of the university. So far, only one of the recommendations has been addressed, and even that will take years to implement.

Hveem is questioning the University Board’s lack of action during the past one and a half years.

The only recommendation that has been addressed is the establishment of a resource centre for language. According to Hveem, the centre is for Norwegian students and staff who want to broaden their linguistic horizon, and for international students who want to learn Norwegian.

Executive for international affairs at the Student Parliament, Ole André Gjerde, feels that the university is hiding behind the promised resource centre.

– At the moment, a lot of international students do not receive proper language instruction. This is a genuine problem, he says, and adds that for this semester alone, 103 students did not receive seats on the Norwegian language courses at UiO.

– I agree that the Board’s handling of the Hveem Report has been too long in coming and I apologise for that, says Pro-rector Inga Bostad. She is in charge of a group people discussing what the research centre should function as.

According to Bostad, there are several reasons to why the results have taken so long.

– The Hveem Report entails a great amount of work. We have been forced to work on these things separately, and the establishment of the research centre has been very time consuming, Bostad sys, and explains that there have been other things to handle in the central administration as well, such as the work on a new wage payment system, POLS.

Still, Bostad stresses that the work on the research centre is coming along nicely, and that they are about to discuss the financial and organisational structure. Nevertheless, she apologises that there still remains a lot of work.

language politics news english
Powered by Labrador CMS