Social Educator - Bachelor Programme

The profession of social educator has its origin in the care of humans with intellectual disability. The scope of the actual training and occupational function has been widened to include the care and social education of people with development impairments and functional disabilities. The task of the social educator is to view the functionally impaired person’s everyday life as a whole. Moreover, the social educator should contribute to target-orientated stimulation, training and development and to promote the individual’s independent mastery of everyday life as a whole.

The objective of the training is to educate social educators who are reflected and who focus on the individual human being, and who at the same time are able to plan and organise relief measures in co-operation with the users and others involved in the process.

Bachelor of Social Educator

Most social educators in Norway are employed in various capacities in the municipal health services. They are also employed in social welfare offices, as educators personally assigned to mentally disabled individuals, as non-institutional social workers in various social environments, as home counsellors for the mentally disabled. Social educators also work in child and juvenile psychiatry, in adult psychiatry, in institutions for the elderly, in caring for people with alcohol and drug abuse problems, and in outreach work among young people.

Completion of general upper-secondary education or prior learningand work experience.

The primary ambition of the programme is that students should get the possibility to acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes based on high quality and relevant research, developmental work and field experience. The programme is interdisciplinary and combines academic subjects with subjects related to the social educator profession.

Distribution of credits in the different subjects:

* = total 48 credits Placement
Placement 1 st year is 6 credits (4 weeks) Placement 2 nd year is 30 credits (20 weeks)
Placement 3 rd is 12 credits (8 weeks)

** = total 12 credits Bachelor Paper/Essay

Teaching methods range from lectures in large auditoriums and teaching in classes, to group and individual tutoring, role-play, essay writing, project and practical training. The teaching language is Norwegian.

Through a short project period the first year the student will get to know various employment areas for social educators. Both the autumn and the spring semester the second year is dedicated to placement. The students work 10 weeks within health institutions in the autumn, and 10 weeks in the care of humans with Intellectual Disabilities.

The placement is essential to increase the students' understanding for the connection between research, theory and knowledge about practice.

A part of the work placement may be taken abroad. The student can apply for studying abroad the autumn semester of the 3rd year. There is a pre approval for studying at Augsburg College, Minneapolis (USA) and Fyn pædagogseminarium, Odense (Denmark).

The student must have passed all the compulsory parts of the programme each year before taking any exam. The student must have passed the exams each year, before he/she starts the next year of study.

Examination range from a combination of portfolio assessment, paper, written and oral examination.

Most textbooks are in Norwegian. A few books may be in Danish, English and Swedish. A part of the litterature is chosen by the student: 600 pages related to work placement 2nd year and 400 pages related to the bachelor paper 3rd year.