More Expensive Gym
As a result of BI, the School of Management, joining SiO (the Students’ Association in Oslo), the University of Oslo has decided to renege on the traditional free loan of premises and equipment to SiO, which has enabled the Association to offer university students cheap exercise facilities. SiO is working on preparing new prices for non–university students. Whereas students have so far paid NOK 650 per term, the actual overall cost has been NOK 1650. Representatives of the students at the other university colleges that have joined SiO are concerned that their students will pay the price for BI joining SiO.
Post–graduate Inflation
Following one year’s use of the A–E grade scale at the University of Oslo, it is evident that students at the post–graduate level are rarely graded as C. Although this was meant to be the mean grade, with one in ten students being awarded an A over time, most post–graduate students are awarded As and Bs. Introducing simple passed/failed grades has been suggested, but a number of players point out that ranking post–graduate students is important in relation to universities abroad and helping graduates into the labour market. The examiners at the Faculties of History
and Philosophy, Educational Science, and Law, are the greatest offenders, with 60% of candidates being awarded As and Bs.
Surveillance and Infiltration
The Muslim Student Society, MSS, has been targeted by politician Carl I. Hagen and his party Fremskrittspartiet (the so–called Progress Party) with plans of surveillance and infiltration. Hagen wants greater control of Muslim communities that invite politicians with Islamic fundamentalist tendencies. Mahmood Ahmad, the president of MSS, has no fear of such surveillance, but says that the proposal is wrong in principle. “The idea of surveillance on the basis of ethnic or religious affiliation poses a danger to Norwegian society,” he says. Lawyer Geir Hovland, director in OPO, the Organisation Against Political Surveillance, describes the proposal as atrocious and a danger to democracy.
by Tanja Christiansen
