Children in kindergartens
04.02.10 Day-care centres, preschools
Annual.
The figures are given on national, county and municipal level.
Division for Education Statistics.
The information is collected by Statistics Norway on behalf of The Ministry of Children and Family Affairs, under the authority of the Parliament's regulations on Appropriations (of November 19th 1959 with amendments) article 17. Statistics Norway uses the reports to produce official statistics under the authority of the Statistics Act of 16 June 1989 No. 54 regarding official statistics and Statistics Norway article 3-2. This double authority has been used since 2001.
None.
Some data are delivered to OECD, UNESCO and Eurostat.
Kindergarten statistics were first collected in 1963, and have been developed since then. The purpose of the statistics is to provide information about the status and changes in numbers of kindergartens, as well as employees in kindergartens. Information reported by the kindergartens also forms background for state subsidies payments, and supervisions according to the Day Care institutions' act and regulations.
Important users of the kindergarten statistics are The Ministry of Children and Family Affairs, municipal authorities, county governors, researchers and the media. The kindergarten statistics are also related to other statistics produced by Statistics Norway, such as the Price level survey of households' payments in kindergartens, account statistics for private kindergartens and KOSTRA (Municipality - State - Reporting).
The statistics include all approved kindergartens of any form of ownership; municipal, county, state and private owned kindergartens. Information is given on the number of children in kindergarten as of 15 December, institutions, persons employed and man-years worked.
With respect to the number of children, information is given on age, attendance per week in ordinary kindergartens, family day-care centres and number of children attending open kindergartens. Information is also given on the number of children relative to number of employees/man-years and the percentage of children in kindergarten relative to the total number of children in corresponding cohorts.
Furthermore, information is given on the number of children that are given priority because of handicap, the number of children that are allocated extra resources and the number of children who receive training in their mother tongue.
Employees and man-years are distributed by category of employment position, education and ownership. Employees are also distributed by gender.
Data is compiled electronically through KOSTRA by the forms "Annual reports for kindergartens as of 15 December".
Including the whole population. All approved kindergartens under the Day Care institutions' act and regulations that receive subsidies are in the sample.
The Annual reports for kindergartens as of 15 December are reported through KOSTRA. The form is completed by all the kindergartens after receiving a printout of the form from their corresponding municipal authorities. The municipalities are responsible for collecting forms for all public and private kindergartens within their jurisdiction. The municipal authorities then report the electronically to Statistics Norway, and information is to be handed over by 15 January.
The electronic forms have several checks active during the registration process. The information is also controlled and revised by corresponding county governors and by Statistics Norway before data are aggregated and published. The controls are based on coherence between data and comparison to prior years. Information influencing levels of subsidies is compared with information from the Ministry of Children and Family Affair's application form for kindergarten subsidies to municipalities.
The statistics is based on enumeration of the number registered children and employees.
The figures are not given on institutions level.
According to the Day Care institutions act of 1995, kindergarten is defined as approved educational activities organized for children below the age of compulsory education. The Ministry of Children and Family Affairs determines regulations and guidelines for kindergartens, while municipalities issue the approvals.
A family day-care centre is a kindergarten that organizes its activities in a private home, based on the premise that a kindergarten teacher is employed as educational supervisor. The kindergarten teacher should either be attached to a normal kindergarten or the municipal administration. The regulation on family day-care centres states that at least half of the children in a family day-care institution group must be other than the home's own children.
Open kindergartens do not have a particular group of children. They are open to children accompanied by parents for playing and social gathering. The estimated number of children attending open kindergartens refers to the number of children who can visit the kindergarten at the same time. Open kindergartens are approved according to the Day Care Institutions Act, hence must the kindergarten be directed by an approved pre-school teacher education, and meet other requirements set by The Ministry of Children and Family Affairs.
In cases where the municipality grants subsidies to kindergartens, it may stipulate the following requirements among others:
Day Care institutions Act section 9 states that: "Children with disabilities shall be given priority admission provided that it is deemed by expert assessment that the child will be able to benefit from attending the day-care institution". Children with special needs may be allocated extra resources in the form of free admissions, extra equipment in the kindergarten, extra persons employed and such.
Bilingual assistance is given to children with other ethnical language and cultural background than Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and English. Subsidies to bilingual assistance may also be provided to deaf children or children with severely disabled hearing in kindergartens, where a bilingual assistant with sign language ability, is employed.
KOSTRA is an abbreviation for "Municipality-State-Reporting". KOSTRA is a national information system for municipal service production, for instance kindergartens. Annual reports for kindergartens as of 15 December are a part of the KOSTRA information system.
Part-time attendance in kindergartens: Number of children with agreed attendance hours within the categories of 0-8 hours, 9-16 hours, 17-24 hours or 25-32 hours per week.
Full-time attendance in kindergartens: Number of children with agreed attendance hours within the categories of 33-40 hours or 41 hours or more per week.
Public kindergartens: Kindergartens owned by the municipal, county municipal or state authorities.
Private kindergartens: Privately owned kindergartens, including privately owned kindergartens receiving subsidies from the municipality.
Non-municipal kindergartens: County municipal, state or privately owned kindergartens.
Errors may occur during completion of the forms in kindergartens or while registration of the data by municipal authorities. Most errors are discovered and corrected by manual or automatic controls, some errors may still occur.
Not relevant.
Not relevant. The statistics is not based on sample surveys.
The compulsory years of schooling in Norway increased from 9 to 10 years in 1997, including 6-year-olds in primary schools instead of kindergartens. This reduces the comparability of some time series like percentage of children attending kindergartens etc.
The categories of different levels of attendance hours were changed from 1999 and on. This was done because of the introduction of cash benefits for parents with small children 1-3 years old that are not attending kindergarten full-time. The former five categories were substituted by six new categories. The definition of full-time attendance in kindergarten was changed from 32 week-hours and more to 33 week-hours and more.
Children in open kindergartens were reported separately from 1999. Earlier they were reported among children in other types of kindergartens. While the statistics prior to 1999 included children in open kindergartens, the separation that was made in 1999 has enabled Statistics Norway to divide between:
The statistics are relevant to other statistics produced by Statistics Norway i.e. price level survey of households' payments in kindergartens, municipal accounts, account statistics for private kindergartens, national accounts and KOSTRA.
The latest releases of kindergarten statistics are published as "Today's statistics" at http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/04/02/10/. Other statistical material that is published by Statistics Norway can be ordered. Data will be provided according to the Statistics Act. Statistics Norway reserves the right to suppress data that may be directly or indirectly identifiable (The Statistics Act article 2-4, 2-5 and 2-6.)
All statistics about kindergartens at Statistics Norway is stored in a proper, standardized manner in consultation with the Data Inspectorate.