Norwegian for adult immigrants, 2011

The statistics on Norwegian for adult immigrants are new and are under development. The statistics include adult immigrants that have participated in Norwegian lessons in 2010 and 2011. The statistics include participants under the Norwegian ”Introduksjonsloven”, which entails a right and a duty to participate in Norwegian lessons for at least 550 hours, in addition to lessons in social studies for at least 50 hours.

Many from Eritrea and Somalia

The statistics show that participants from Asia and Africa are most dominant among the participants. About 4 000 participants had Eritrea or Somalia as their country background in 2011. More than half of the participants originated from Eritrea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Thailand, Iraq or the Philippines.

Reason for immigration is refugee or family for nine in ten

More than nine out of ten participants in Norwegian for adult immigrants had family or refugee as their reason for immigration. Only 5 and 3 per cent had work and education as their reason for immigration respectively. This is due to the fact that the public arrangement with free Norwegian for adult immigrants is primarily aimed at immigrants with refugee or family as their immigrant reason. Immigrants from the EU area who have work as their reason for immigration are not a target group for Norwegian for adult immigrants.