Annual reports

NOKUT's annual report the Ministry of Education

We send a formal feedback to the Ministry of Education (KD) about the use of the general government grant. This report includes, among other things, the annual financial statements, as well as a detailed review of the year's activities and results and an assessment of our prospects.

  • Read the whole report (pdf) – NB! In Norwegian only

    Board's report

    Content

     

    About NOKUT

    In 2023, it was 20 years since NOKUT was established. At the beginning of the year, NOKUT had a new strategy, a new organisational structure, and a societal mission that even more strongly focused on ensuring and developing quality in higher education and vocational education. The background for these changes was that the tasks of recognition of foreign education were transferred to The Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir) from January 1.

    A significant milestone in the anniversary year was that NOKUT renewed its membership in the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) and continued its registration in The European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR), confirming that the work at NOKUT is of internationally high quality. NOKUT fulfilled all the relevant criteria in The Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG), and it was emphasised that the organisation has made significant progress on several of the indicators since the previous evaluation in 2018. NOKUT was also praised for its open dialogue with stakeholders and for developing new, innovative methods.

    Achievement of Goals

    Overall, the Board is satisfied with NOKUT's achievement of goals in 2023. Despite many parallel processes and growth in ordinary tasks, increasing numbers of applications, and a tight budget, NOKUT has performed well and can demonstrate good goal achievement in line with the new strategy, NOKUT 2030: Ensure quality, build trust. The significant increase in applications in the vocational school sector has been particularly challenging. Therefore, it has been important to allocate the resources efficiently. Throughout the year, there have been reallocations across the organisation and between tasks. In addition, new working methods have been adopted, and processes have been streamlined. The Board commends the employees and management of NOKUT for the significant work they have done.

    Key Issues

    The periodic follow-up of the systematic quality work of the institutions is intended to contribute to society's trust in Norwegian higher education maintaining a high international standard, and that both NOKUT and the educational institutions fulfill their obligations. NOKUT is now completing the third round of follow-up initiated in 2017, which has been carried out as supervision. In 2023, ten supervisions were completed. The systematic quality work at four universities and three university colleges was satisfactory. Two university colleges had some deficiencies in their work, while one university college had significant deficiencies. After the supervisions, the institutions report better knowledge of the regulations and greater commitment to systematic quality work. This illustrates that periodic follow-up ensures and contributes to further developing educational quality. Throughout the year, work has also been done in parallel to approach the next round of this periodic follow-up. The board is satisfied that, in this work, emphasis is being placed on developing even more effective procedures which should both be better tailored to the unique nature of the various institutions and in accordance with the powers that the institutional category implies, and which to a greater extent stimulates development.

    In 2023, NOKUT continued to receive many accreditation applications for new study programs or changes to existing ones. The number of applications is increasing. This trend has resulted in application queues in both 2023 and the previous year. Therefore, it takes longer for applicants to receive a response to their applications than has been the norm in the past. NOKUT has taken several measures to reduce processing time, especially in the processing of accreditation applications from vocational schools. Prioritisations and efficiency measures, along with additional funding in the revised national budget, contributed to NOKUT being able to process significantly more accreditation applications for vocational study programs than planned for in 2023. Accreditation of subject areas has been prioritised, and in December, five vocational schools were accredited for their respective subject areas: three in the health professions area and two in economics and administration.

    The experience from processing accreditation applications is that many vocational schools have a great need for guidance and that there is a need to increase the level of systematic quality work. NOKUT contributes to the work initiated by the Ministry of Education and Research to develop a system for institutional accreditation. Along with other work NOKUT does with quality follow-up systems, this is important for further development in the sector.

    The Student Survey, the topic-specific national assessment examinations, and evaluations provide knowledge that is used to further develop the quality at the institutions and for governance and policy making. In 2023, NOKUT completed the evaluation of practical-pedagogical education and initiated the evaluation of the professional programme in medicine and of the initial teacher education for grades 1–7 and grades 5–10. The feedback from these evaluations shows that NOKUT succeeds in following up on intentions to facilitate learning, identify challenges, and provide advice on measures to develop quality. Thus, the evaluations represent alternative approaches to quality development work than supervision, providing NOKUT with a wider range of tools.

    The Board is pleased that NOKUT sees the opportunities in technology and participates in the digital transformation. This includes digitisation in case processing, but also the use of machine learning and facilitating the sharing of various data collected. For example, using artificial intelligence in summarising and systematising available knowledge will strengthen knowledge sharing and guidance efforts.

    Being a regulatory administrator is also a central part of how NOKUT fulfills its role as an authority. NOKUT carries out regulatory and control tasks on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Research. In 2023, tasks included, among other things, five assignments from the Ministry of Education and Research on regulatory development: reporting considering the trust reform, the grant scheme for private university colleges, personnel regulations for universities and university colleges, contributions to the accreditation expert group, and clarification of frameworks and conditions for institutional accreditation of vocational schools. These examples show that regulatory assignments contribute to strengthening the foundation for NOKUT's core activities in ensuring and developing quality.

    NOKUT has good systems for managing the business. As part of the work on target and performance management, the board regularly reviews the risk picture for target achievement, assessment of financial consequences and reprioritisation if necessary. In 2023, the Board also had strategic discussions about work on quality development in the vocational school sector, the future outlook for NOKUT, follow-up of the ENQA evaluation, use of knowledge-based tools, development of the Student Survey, and the fourth round of periodic follow-up of quality work.

    Priorities Going Forward

    NOKUT's operations should contribute to society's trust in the quality of Norwegian higher education and vocational education. NOKUT's ambition is to be a modern and forward-looking quality assurance body that fulfills its societal mission to ensure and contribute to developing educational quality in a forward-looking manner. Through systematic work on its societal mission, NOKUT also meets the requirements of the European standards (ESG) that quality assurance and quality development are mutually dependent and necessary for building a good quality culture. NOKUT already has a strong position among European quality assurance bodies. The Board is committed to further developing this position in the years to come.

    The work to develop the next round of periodic follow-up of higher education institutions and efforts to contribute to strengthening the quality of vocational education are prioritised tasks going forward. NOKUT will also work systematically to make the tools for external quality assurance even more precise and contribute to development. NOKUT has summarised its societal mission through a description of three roles: the authority role, the knowledge role, and the role as champion for quality in education. The Board believes the new strategy supports the work of the societal mission and the various roles well and that the strategy will be a good basis for annual priorities.

    Tight financial frameworks combined with a backlog of applications give less room for maneuver than desired. Therefore, it may still take some time before NOKUT can deliver core tasks within the time frame desired by the Board and society. The Board is concerned about the long-term consequences this may have for quality development, for the strain on employees, and for possible damage to the reputation. Therefore, the Board will continue to conduct regular reviews of the risk picture for goal achievement and assessment of economic consequences, make priorities, and contribute to putting various forms of efficiency on the agenda, so that the tight financial constraints can be utilised as effectively as possible.

    About the NOKUT Board

    In 2023, the Board had the following members: Professor Lise Iversen Kulbrandstad (Chair), CEO Øystein Eriksen Søreide (Vice Chair), Vice-Dean Saira Basit, Associate Professor Cecilia Christersson, Senior Advisor Mads Danbolt (Employee Representative), Professor Dag Husebø, Director Vegard Iversen (from August 1, 2023), Former Rector Sonja H. Wiik (attending deputy member until July 31, 2023), Student Tommy Raaen (Student Mathias Hillgren, deputy member), Student Oline Marie Sæther (until June 30, 2023), and Student Eilif H. Finnseth (attending deputy member from July 1, 2023).

    Read the whole report (pdf) – NB! In Norwegian only

NOKUT – The Year [...]

Up to and including 2019 we published a brief and general report every year, NOKUT – The Year [...]. This report provides a brief introduction to and overview of our activities.