The survey covers teachers who taught in the 2021/2022 school year and is limited to employees in the teaching profession with an agreed percentage of full-time equivalent of more than 50. The report also includes those who teach special language instruction and special education. Sami and Norwegian Sign Language are briefly discussed in Appendix B. Findings on teachers’ professional development are presented at the end of the report.

According to section 14 of the Education Act, primary and lower secondary school teachers must have at least 30 subject related credit points to be qualified to teach Mathematics, English and Norwegian, Norwegian Sign Language and Sami by 1 August 2025. To teach at lower secondary level, they must have at least 60 credit points in these subjects. The proportion of teachers who meet the subject qualification requirements varies from subject to subject. Nevertheless, most primary and lower secondary school teachers have sufficient credit points to qualify for teaching these subjects.

In Norwegian, Mathematics and English, there has been an increase in the proportion of teachers with sufficient subject qualification since the survey in 2018/2019 (Perlic, 2019). In 2021/2022, 81 percent of Norwegian teachers, 74 percent of Mathematics teachers and 57 percent of English teachers fulfil the requirements.

In English, a lack of sufficient subject qualification is most pronounced among those who teach in grades 1 to 4, where only 40 percent of teachers have sufficient credit points. However, 81 percent of English teachers in grades 8 to 10 have sufficient subject qualification.

In all teaching subjects – with the exception of Music – the proportion with credit points has increased since the previous survey. The change compared with 2018/2019 is greatest among teachers of English, Social studies and Mathematics. Teachers who have more lessons per week generally have more credit points than teachers who have fewer lessons.

In Norwegian, Foreign languages, KRLE and Arts and crafts, female teachers tend to have more credit points in the subject than male teachers. In Physical education, Music, Food and health, Social studies and Science the gender pattern is opposite.

An increasing number of Norwegian, Mathematics and English teachers have taken part in further professional development earning them credit points in the subject they teach. The proportion of teachers in these subjects who have taken credit-giving further education has increased by between 9 and 10 percentage points from 2018/2019 to 2021/2022. Such further education is more common among Mathematics teachers (31 per cent) than Norwegian teachers (26 per cent) and English teachers (22 per cent).