Nordic co-operation

The Nordic Council

The Nordic Council was formed by Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in 1952. Finland joined in 1955.The Nordic Council is the official inter-parliamentary body in the Nordic Region. The Council has 87 elected members from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden as well as from the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland.

The Nordic Council of Ministers
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have been members of the Nordic Council of Ministers since 1971. In addition, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Åland have also increased their representation and position in the Nordic Council of Ministers, with the same representation as the above mentioned countries.
The office of both the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers is in Copenhagen.

Education
Establishing a good education and research community is a central objective for the Nordic Region. Just as the Nordic countries are close to each other in terms of geography, history and culture,the education systems also have several similarities and face common challenges. We have a great deal to learn from each other. Through co-operation, we achieve better results that benefit our schools and other educational and training institutions, not to mention their pupils and apprentices.
Nordic co-operation on schools facilitates the sharing of experiences between educational authorities, researchers and school principals and teachers in the five Nordic countries and the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland.
Every year, a number of conferences, seminars and meetings are held on central political and pedagogic questions and themes. These lead to further reports and studies, the outcomes of which are then discussed and followed up

Nordplus

Nordplus is the Nordic Council of Ministers' largest education and training programme, is a framework programme comprising four sub-programmes directed at different target groups.

The programme funds mobility, projects and networks, and is open to institutions and organisations that work on education and training.

The programme covers the five Nordic countries, the three autonomous territories – the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland – and the Baltic States Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.

Nordplus junior

Nordplus Junior covers pre-school, primary and secondary schools and youth training.

The programme funds, for example, mobility for classes or pupils at basic level and in youth training; individual pupil mobility (e.g. workplace exchanges for pupils in both vocational training and theoretical programmes); mobility for teachers and other pedagogic staff in pre-school, primary and secondary schools and youth training; networking activities; and development projects.

The upper-secondary school agreement

The upper-secondary agreement commits the Nordic countries to provide people from the other countries in the Region with access to education at advanced schooling level (i.e. entrance qualifications for higher education and vocational training programmes) on the same terms as the country's own citizens.

Links:

Nordplus Junior; http://www.nordplusonline.org/junior
Nordplus; http://www.nordplusonline.org/

This article is base don information from http://www.norden.org/en

Christian Hellevang
Vice president of FUG (National Parents’ Committee for Primary and Secondary Education in Norway )