One in ten students lost studentship at UiO last year.

FOTO: Marius Nergård Pettersen

FOTO: Marius Nergård Pettersen

FOTO: Marius Nergård Pettersen

Recent numbers Universitas has collected from the faculties at UiO indicate this trend. Students from the faculties of Social Sciences and Humanities are most frequently kicked out; 1408 of the former and 1073 of the latter lost their rights to study during the course of last year whereas only four students of Medicine and ten students of Dentistry suffered the same fate.

Kristian Meisingset, responsible for academic affairs in the Student Parliament, is surprised by these numbers.

- Surprisingly many are kicked out. However, I do not think it is reasonable that you are allowed to be a student at UiO and take part in all the benefits if you are not really a student here, he says.

Major cleaning

According to the faculties, most students lose their rights to study on account of too poor academic progress. Following the implementation of the Quality Reform in 2003, students have to achieve at least 30 credits per year in order to keep studentship. Before, you were able to keep studentship almost indefinitely. The largest faculties are happy with this new arrangement and feel that it is necessary to get some order back into the lines.

- I am pleased that we have freer hands as to revoking studentships. In the opposite case, the faculties would have no chance to calculate how many who are indeed students at any given moment, which in turn might create queues, says dean Asbjørn Rødseth at the Faculty of Social Sciences (SV).

He believes the high numbers might have something to do with the fact that many applied for renewed studentship in connection to the implementation of the Quality Reform in 2003 but have later decided not to study. This year is the first where these dropouts are indicated by statistics.

Tor Egil Førland, academic dean at the Faculty of Humanities, thinks that it is not unreasonable to expect a certain effort from students:

- I do not think it is too much to ask that students achieve 30 credits per academic year when 60 is normative. Students on programmes are those who are at risk. We spend a lot of resources on these students, and we have to be able to rely on their activeness in taking exams.

Unwanted

Magnus Stranden Alstad, who is a programme student doing Political Science at SV, has lost his studentship three years in a row. In his case, it may seem as if the faculty has been a little overzealous in its elimination of inactive students:

- This is very annoying and a bit comic. In 2004, I applied for a postponement of my studentship because I had been called up for military service. I received a letter from the faculty telling me that it was okay, but come autumn, I was nevertheless notified that I had lost my studentship due to inactivity.

Alstad called the faculty straightaway, and they confirmed that the University had made a mistake. Notwithstanding, he has received a similar letter from the faculty around the time of exams every year since despite the fact that he has been fully active following his return from the military.

- Every summer around exams, there is a letter from UiO waiting in my mail box, which means I have to go up to the Department of Political Science to straighten things out. This has become a matter of routine for me. But I’m pretty pissed off, I can’t be asked to keep doing this every year around exams, he says.

Trine Beate Elvebakken at SV`s information services says this is due to a registration error from 2003 and 2004.

- Five students were incorrectly registered in 2003 and 2004, and we have not been able to remove these errors from the system. That is why they keep getting letters regarding revoked studentships, Elvebakken says. She explains that the department now wants to make this right so that students are unaffected by them in the future.