Will the new reform of 2006 improve geography as a taught subject in Norwegian schools?

There have been several school reforms in Norway since World War II. The first reform for upper secondary schools was in 1976, at a time when geography taught in schools in Norway was obsolete and in need of change. A major result of the reform was a shift in focus from regional geographic perspectives to more systematic perspectives on geography. Geography was part of the curriculum for pupils from their first year, but another reform in 1990 changed this. Subsequently, although the reform was more ambitious, pupils did not study geography until their second grade. Four years later, Norway had an impatient Minister of Education who wanted to imprint his ideas and who thus launched Reform 94. For geography, Reform 94 was a mixed blessing: it reduced the scope of the ‘main geography course’ from three to two hours peer week, but two optional subjects were introduced, physical geography and human geography. The most recent reform, the Knowledge Promotion Reform 2006 (K06), will be implemented in Autumn 2006. It is again a reform with high ambitions but without any increase in the number of taught hours in geography. However, an increased number of pupils will be exposed to geography because it will be taught in several lines of study. Also, in addition to the existing subjects in human geography, a new subject will be introduced called ‘geosubjects’. Among the changes with K06 are emphasis on ICT (information and communication technologies) and stressing a global perspective already from first grade, thereby hopefully making geography an attractive in-depth study for second and third year pupils. In this paper, we will outline how we believe K06 may strengthen school geography and we will draw some comparisons with the situation in England. Despite the new reform’s proposals, we may still be far below English standards.