Statistikk innhold
Statistics on
Activities of adult learning associations
The main purpose is to show education arranged by popular education organizations from different angles. The aim is to reveal the total course activities, give information on course level, choice of subjects, as well as age and gender of the participants.
Selected figures from these statistics
- Popular education organisations. Number of courses, participants and lessonsDownload table as ...Popular education organisations. Number of courses, participants and lessons
2025 2021 - 2025 Change in per cent Courses 49 564 44.3 Both sexes 578 431 41.6 Males 230 230 30.2 Females 348 201 50.4 Lessons total 1 316 196.50 45.0 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Number of courses, participants and lessons by organizationDownload table as ...Number of courses, participants and lessons by organization
2025 Courses Participants Lessons total Total Males Females Total 49 564 578 431 230 230 348 201 1 316 196.50 The Workers' Education Association of Norway (-2023) 0 0 0 0 0.00 The Adult Learning Association for Agriculture and Community 2 090 19 878 14 609 5 269 42 481.50 Adult Education Association of Christian communities and organizations in Norway 7 153 66 973 29 654 37 319 154 775.75 The Study Association Funkis 8 589 79 787 21 848 57 939 163 713.00 Association for studies of culture and traditions 7 975 66 578 15 864 50 714 240 881.00 The Sports Education Foundation 3 349 46 488 27 458 19 030 41 635.00 The Adult Education Association of Music 6 006 90 304 36 066 54 238 304 561.50 The Sami Adult Education Association 59 365 68 297 4 400.00 The Adult Education Association of the Centre Party 1 046 5 876 2 988 2 888 15 132.50 The Adult Education Association of Solidarity 295 2 188 705 1 483 56 012.00 Study association for Lifelong Learning 4 951 71 990 32 147 39 843 163 493.75 The Adult Education Association of Nature and Environment 4 682 38 024 16 607 21 417 84 474.00 The Adult Education Association of the Liberal Party 897 5 199 2 912 2 287 11 915.50 The Academic Association for Adult Education 2 472 84 781 29 304 55 477 32 721.00 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Number of courses, participants and lessons, by subjectDownload table as ...Number of courses, participants and lessons, by subject
2025 Courses Participants Lessons total Total Males Females Total 49 564 578 431 230 230 348 201 1 316 196.50 Language studies 443 3 675 1 084 2 591 21 174.50 Aesthetic subjects and handicraft 17 421 204 514 68 793 135 721 704 739.25 Humanities, philosophy and ethics 5 813 62 845 28 302 34 543 118 865.25 Social sciences 934 22 171 6 858 15 313 24 616.25 Organization and management 8 989 129 918 57 036 72 882 114 570.15 Business and ICT 542 5 320 2 145 3 175 5 330.25 Health, social and sports 10 143 88 192 28 152 60 040 205 301.85 Transport and communication 68 1 387 901 486 973.75 Science, industry and technical subjects 1 144 23 112 16 631 6 481 21 832.50 Natural resource management, ecology, environmental protection and outdoor recreation 4 055 37 139 20 269 16 870 97 575.75 Goods and services 12 158 59 99 1 217.00 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Number of participant, by organizations and ageDownload table as ...Number of participant, by organizations and age
2025 Participants 14-29 years 30-49 years 50 years or older Total 578 431 163 052 144 589 270 790 The Workers' Education Association of Norway (-2023) 0 0 0 0 The Adult Learning Association for Agriculture and Community 19 878 7 260 7 288 5 330 Adult Education Association of Christian communities and organizations in Norway 66 973 42 847 10 194 13 932 The Study Association Funkis 79 787 3 388 10 887 65 512 Association for studies of culture and traditions 66 578 20 740 6 385 39 453 The Sports Education Foundation 46 488 22 336 18 085 6 067 The Adult Education Association of Music 90 304 10 744 16 424 63 136 The Sami Adult Education Association 365 105 94 166 The Adult Education Association of the Centre Party 5 876 543 1 883 3 450 The Adult Education Association of Solidarity 2 188 502 765 921 Study association for Lifelong Learning 71 990 27 823 14 760 29 407 The Adult Education Association of Nature and Environment 38 024 12 481 12 644 12 899 The Adult Education Association of the Liberal Party 5 199 1 411 1 566 2 222 The Academic Association for Adult Education 84 781 12 872 43 614 28 295 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Number of participants, by subject, age and sexDownload table as ...Number of participants, by subject, age and sex
2025 Participants 14-29 years 30-49 years 50 years or older Total 578 431 163 052 144 589 270 790 Language studies 3 675 541 1 905 1 229 Aesthetic subjects and handicraft 204 514 42 371 32 079 130 064 Humanities, philosophy and ethics 62 845 43 960 4 894 13 991 Social sciences 22 171 3 716 12 089 6 366 Organization and management 129 918 36 257 51 040 42 621 Business and ICT 5 320 516 1 249 3 555 Health, social and sports 88 192 12 179 20 816 55 197 Transport and communication 1 387 219 578 590 Science, industry and technical subjects 23 112 10 329 7 749 5 034 Natural resource management, ecology, environmental protection and outdoor recreation 37 139 12 942 12 093 12 104 Goods and services 158 22 97 39 Males Total 230 230 77 090 58 876 94 264 Language studies 1 084 171 651 262 Aesthetic subjects and handicraft 68 793 16 110 10 370 42 313 Humanities, philosophy and ethics 28 302 21 410 2 014 4 878 Social sciences 6 858 1 182 3 601 2 075 Organization and management 57 036 16 685 22 643 17 708 Business and ICT 2 145 263 562 1 320 Health, social and sports 28 152 5 323 6 855 15 974 Transport and communication 901 143 372 386 Science, industry and technical subjects 16 631 6 942 5 782 3 907 Natural resource management, ecology, environmental protection and outdoor recreation 20 269 8 852 5 991 5 426 Goods and services 59 9 35 15 Females Total 348 201 85 962 85 713 176 526 Language studies 2 591 370 1 254 967 Aesthetic subjects and handicraft 135 721 26 261 21 709 87 751 Humanities, philosophy and ethics 34 543 22 550 2 880 9 113 Social sciences 15 313 2 534 8 488 4 291 Organization and management 72 882 19 572 28 397 24 913 Business and ICT 3 175 253 687 2 235 Health, social and sports 60 040 6 856 13 961 39 223 Transport and communication 486 76 206 204 Science, industry and technical subjects 6 481 3 387 1 967 1 127 Natural resource management, ecology, environmental protection and outdoor recreation 16 870 4 090 6 102 6 678 Goods and services 99 13 62 24 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Number of participants, by examination and levelDownload table as ...Number of participants, by examination and level
2025 Total Option of public examination Option of other valid examination or certificate Option of internal examination Option of vocational examination No examination or final tests Total 578 431 2 531 24 241 6 506 689 544 464 Primary level 253 653 750 14 697 3 725 0 234 481 Secondary level 248 619 1 554 9 136 1 477 689 235 763 Higher level 11 418 227 16 294 0 10 881 Not reported 64 741 0 392 1 010 0 63 339 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ...
About the statistics
The information under «About the statistics» was last updated 18 March 2025.
Adult education
Education specially arranged for adults.
Subject
The courses are grouped after school subjects in accordance with Norwegian educational terms.
Level
The popular education organizations can offer courses on primary, secondary, and tertiary educational level in addition to many other courses.
Lessons
One course lesson is 60 minutes. Breaks of up to 15 minutes per hour are included.
Courses offering examination
Meaning to be a supplement to subject and level. Several courses arranged by popular education organizations give students the possibility to take an examination.
Classification of subject groups is worked out by Statistics Norway together with The Ministry of Education and Research, The Norwegian Association for Adult Education, Norwegian Association for Distance Education and Folk High School Council.
County is based on the classification of county municipality.
Name: Activities of adult learning associations
Topic: Education
Division for Education and Culture Statistics
The statistics are given on national and county level. It is also possible to order tables on municipal level.
Annual.
Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.
Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.
The main purpose is to show education arranged by popular education organizations from different angels. The aim is to reveal total course activities related to course level, choice of subjects and age as well as gender of the participants.
The statistics about course activities for popular education organizations started 1996 and were financed by The Ministry of Education and Research. The statistics has been published yearly since then and is financed by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills.
Users are the Ministry of Education and Research, the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills, other public services, researching institutions, media, the Norwegian Association for Adult Education and the association "Kompetanseforbundet", as well as individual popular education organizations.
No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.
This statistics is a part of statistics of adult education in Norway.
The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).
The statistics are part of the national programme for official statistics, topic Education, sub-topic Adult education.
All approved popular education organizations receiving grants report on course completions to Statistics Norway.
Each participant are reported by course subject, place of residence, and aim group in addition to course level, duration, and time when they started and finished the course.
The statistics are based on electronic reports from popular education organizations and include the entire population of these organizations.
Per 1 March in the year of census data is collected from the popular education organizations. After correcting the data, Statistics Norway put all files together to one basic file, on which the statistics are based.
Editing is defined here as checking, examining and amending data. All received data files undergo various controls, such as deleting duplicates and checking variables for valid values. In case errors are discovered, the popular education organizations will be contacted for corrections. Statistics Norway makes test tables based on corrected data, so the individual organizations get the possibility to compare own figures.
Statistics about popular education organizations is summarily only, and special analyses are not executed.
Employees of Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality.
Statistics Norway does not publish figures if there is a risk of the respondent’s contribution being identified. This means that, as a general rule, figures are not published if fewer than three units form the basis of a cell in a table or if the contribution of one or two respondents constitutes a very large part of the cell total.
Statistics Norway has published statistics on popular education organizations since 1997. The statistics for the period 1997-2009 includes courses of at least 12 lessons, but the statistics from 2010 includes courses of at least 8 lessons and is still comparable with the statistics of today.
Because of the corona pandemic,there was a temporary exception with regard to the number of instruction hours and courses lasting at least 4 hours were included in 2020. The new regulations regulating adult learning associations approved by the Ministry og Education and Research and the regulation regulating adult learning associations approved by the Ministry of Culture and Equality entered into force January 1st, 2021. They specify that from 2021, courses have to last at least 4 hours.
Until the reporting for the year of 2022, the adult learning associations reported the number of hours rounded to the nearest whole number, while hours are reported with decimals from the reporting year 2023.
Until 2010, one cours lesson lasted for 45 minutes. From 2010 and onwards, a course lesson is defined as 60 minutes, but breaks of up to 15 minutes per course lesson are included.
The Workers' Education Association of Norway (Studieforbundet AOF) filed for bankruptcy on July 2, 2024. Parts of the bankruptcy estate were taken over by Akademiet videreutdanning. Akademiet and the former member organizations AOF Vestlandet-Agder and AOF Østlandet became members of the Adult Learning Association for Agriculture and Community on September 24, 2024, and reported to this association from that date. Course activities that are entitled to grants organized by AOF Vestlandet-Agder and AOF Østlandet from January 1, 2024, to July 2, 2024, have been reported by the Adult Learning Association for Agriculture and Community. Courses organized from January 1, 2024, to July 2, 2024, for the other parts of the Workers' Education Association of Norway are not included in the statistics for 2024.
Mostly, errors can be traced back to data repported by the popular education organizations. Errors in coding of course completions might occur and it can be difficult to assign subject codes and level for the courses.
Statistics about popular education organizations include courses receiving grants only, and do not reflect the whole education activities.
Sampling errors and non-response errors are not relevant as the statistics are based on data from all popular education organizations.
A revision is a planned change to figures that have already been published, for example when releasing final figures as a follow-up to published preliminary figures. See also Statistics Norway’s principles for revisions. For these statistics, no preliminary figures are published.