Norway´s students gathered under the same banner
This is what your new student organization looks like. NSO will not support people with disabilities´ right to full economic support to study.
Norsk Studentorganisasjon, the Norwegian Student Organization in English and NSO in short, is the name of the new student organization that was officially founded last weekend. The merger of Studentenes Landsforbund (StL) and the National Union of Students in Norway (NSU) is reality.
– I have ambitions of making NSO´s voice loud in the Norwegian general public, says Anne Karine Nymoen.
Nymoen is the first head of the giant organization, which now represents around 200 000 Norwegian students. The newly elected leader thinks the newborn organization will carry more weight when it acts and speaks on behalf of the students. She also hopes students will notice two essential changes as a result of the new merger.
– Firstly I hope we become more visible, and secondly I hope the students will notice that our organization obtains more breakthroughs for our cases, now that we are a unity, she says.
– A wise unity
Two former leaders of NSU, who since their time in the organization have had a large influence on Norwegian society, both wish the new organization good luck.
– It is wise to unite forces, and it is wise to see the entirety and the connection, says president of the Norwegian Red Cross, Sven Mollekleiv.
He was the leader of NSU between 1978 and 1979. He compares NSO´s influential possibilities with a large-scale initiative in the volunteer sector.
– We launched a project on visibility in Norway four years ago. This was the first time in history where a unified voluntariness managed to gather before the government and the Storting. It lead to an increase in people who listened to the organization, compared to previously, states Mollekleiv.
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Thorvald Stoltenberg led NSU from 1953 to 1954.
– I never understood why the organizations were split in the first place. I am very happy that they have united, says Stoltenberg.
– Do you believe a larger and more united student organization will be more influential in Norwegian politics?
– There is no doubt of that. There are only two things that are concerned: Fellowship and solidarity. Solidarity means power, says Stoltenberg.
Effective, but vulnerable
Professor of political science Svein Morten Egeberg agrees with Mollekleiv and Stoltenberg and believes the new organization is more effective. He underlines, however, the disadvantages that come with a larger organization structure.
– The organization obviously wins when it comes to larger resources, but there is a price to pay for becoming bigger. The larger the organization, the more internal ponderation problems. Time-consuming decision-making processes and vague decisions will be challenging, warns Egeberg,
The first leader or NSO still thinks the foundation meeting is reason for optimism.
– I feel that we really left that meeting as one organization, not two, says Nymoen.
– We are now going to spend time getting to know our member institutions and travel around to get to know the whole organization. Later we will work with the media and the student media. This is important to us, claims Nymoen.
Under the foundation meeting in the Norwegian Student Organization (NSO) several suggestions of twelve months´ worth of financial support for people with disabilities were dismissed. The representatives at the meeting were supposed to vote for which issues the council will work on the following year.
Secretary-general in the Norwegian Federation of Organisations of Disabled People (FFO), Liv Aarum, thinks the rejection gives evidence of a lack of solidarity from the students.
– This is a relevant question for a student organization, and for a long time this has been an issue students with disabilities have worked for, she says.
Lack of support for people with disabilities
Unlike in Sweden and Denmark, there are in Norway no separate support arrangements for students with disabilities, despite the fact that students with disabilities often have more expences than other students. This group also has more difficulties working next to studying.
Ingvild Skogvold of the Left Alliance functioned as a delegate for the University of Oslo on the foundation meeting and thinks it is a pity that the suggestion of twelve months´ worth of financial support for people with disabilities did not break through.
– The Left Alliance is very preoccupied with more support for students with disabilities. NSO should definitely back this work up. This is about the equal right to education, says Skogvold.
She does not think the reason for the dismissal of the suggestion was good enough.
– The argument against was that there were too many points in the work program. But this is about a less resourceful group of society that needs our help, thinks Skogvold.
– Keeps working
The organization Young Disables has led the work towards twelve months of support for students with disabilities.
Head of the organization Adrian Tollefsen takes the rejection calmly.
– I guess they rejected the in order to promote eleven months of support for all students, says Tollefsen.
He does however admit that the organization preferably should have admitted the suggestion.
– Of course I am disappointed that they have chosen not to include the suggestion. But I respect their prioritizations, Tollefsen underlines, and states he will continue to work for bettering the conditions for students with disabilities.
– We work independently for twelve months worth of financial support for our groups, he rounds off.
