The national budget for 2009 was put forward three weeks ago, and got a polite reception from the higher education sector. Now academia has discovered that all will not be plain sailing.

2008-10-29 På norsk

According to calculations made by the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions (UHR), the sector will have 600 million kroner less to play with in 2009. For the University of Oslo (UiO), this will mean a cut in funding of approximately 100 million kroner. The cuts in the national budget are firstly due to an increase in premium rates on pensions, and secondly due to the fact that the budget allows for an increase in wages of 4,4 per cent, while the actual growth in wages is 6,5 per cent. This means that the original increase in the 2009 budget will be used on increased wage and pension expenses.

UiO made cuts to its range of courses and teaching in 2008, and it now looks like more cuts will have to be made.

- There have already been many measures put in place that have reduced the amount of teaching. In the long run, there will be whole activities that one must consider cutting back on, and it is a possibility that whole programmes might have to be closed down. In practice, this will reverse the measures that were put in place in connection with the Quality Reform, states Director of Finance at UiO, Marianne Mancini.

- We have had a tough financial situation for several years. Costs have risen, but funds have not. The financial situations at the various faculties now seem much worse. Wage costs have risen, but the wage pot remains the same, Mancini says.

A painful process

President of the National Union of Students in Norway (NSU), Ingvild Reymert, is worried that the financial problems will affect students this time as well.

- We at NSU are not negative to the rise in wages, but we are worried that when wage costs rise without more funds being allotted from the Government, then the range of courses and teaching offered to students will be diminished. We wish to warn against any more cuts in education, Reymert says.

- We have the choice between offering a wide range of studies with a lower level of quality, or cutting down the number of subjects on offer and maintaining the level of quality, Mancini states.

As a consequence of the poor financial situation, UiO has decided to cut subsidies to the Foundation for Student Life in Oslo (SiO) by a million kroner in 2009. Administrative Director of SiO, Lisbeth Dyrberg, does not yet know where cuts will have to be made.

- There will be a process wherein we will go through our finances with the administration of UiO, but so far we have just received a general letter, Dyrberg says.

Real decrease for the sector

The cut predicted by UHR is twice as big as the safety margin of approximately 300 million kroner.

- All in all, the sector will experience a real decrease in their budgets, despite an increase in the total budget. Another real decrease will affect motivation and quality, and this must be viewed as an insufficient backing of Norway as a «nation of knowledge» on the Government’s part, states President of UHR, Jarle Aarbakke.

The approximately 200 research fellowships that the Government announced in the budget proposal will be part-financed with 800 000 kroner for each position. Calculations made by UHR and UiO show that the average cost of such a position is 1, 050 million kroner. However, since three quarters of the research fellowships are to be within the subject fields of science and health, which is more expensive, the shortfall is thought to be in the region of 20 million kroner.

Senior Adviser at the Ministry of Education and Research (KD), Karin Steenstrup, writes in an email that the ministry is working on this issue, but states that at the present time they can only explain how funds are allotted: the ministry assigns funds according to advance calculations. The institution carries the risk of possible increases in costs and wages.

Anna Werenskjold • Paul Anthony Wilson (photography) • Translated by Anna Young