DION was contacted by Karina Mahan, leader of the research group ‘Language Practice in Education’ at NTNU, about an opinion article of new language regulations in higher education sector.
As many of our members have international background, the DION board considered it relevant for its members, and has therefor decided to share this information with you. However we would like to highlight that this opinion piece doesn’t present DION´s attitude on that matter.
Dear Phds and Postdocs at NTNU,
The research group ‘Language Practice in Education’ is currently writing an opinion piece (kronikk) that critically discusses the new regulations for Norwegian that will be issued at Stortinget in February. The text will be sent Forskning.no at the end of January. We are looking for signatures in support of our cause.
Essentially, the new regulation stipulates that international employees must reach level B2 in Norwegian within 3 years, and Språkrådet is pressing for consequences with HR if this is not achieved. Additionally, the new regulation will require all temporary employees (PhD and Postdoc) to take 15 credits of mandatory Norwegian class.
Our position is that developing Norwegian as an academic language is important for Norwegian society. We support all voluntary measures that aid international employees in learning Norwegian. However, we are worried that the new regulations will not be attainable and are in danger of discriminating against foreign-born academics. We are therefore asking for signatures to support our opinion piece, in hopes that the government will take these arguments into consideration before issuing the new regulation.
If you are interested in supporting our cause, please access the link and add a comment with your name, title and institution under “Signed supportively by”. We would also greatly appreciate if you can forward this mail to any colleagues who might be interested. The more the article is signed and shared, the louder our voice will be heard. The link is here: Kronikk til Forskning.no.docx
If you are not interested in supporting our cause, we fully respect your decision, and hope that it will not affect our further research collaborations. Please do not feel obligated to answer this mail if this is the case.
We hope that you can respond quickly, as we need to publish the piece by the end of January.
All the best,
Karina Mahan (leader of research group ‘Language Practice in Education’)