Slinde – Norway’s journey

It has been a journey. And it started, you know, way back in the 1800s with the asylum movement and Frobel as an inspiration for the – for the development of provision for the youngest children. And I think that these roots, being rooted in the asylum movement, that were about child protection and social welfare, and in addition in that kindergarten tradition of Frobel where you were providing the environments for children’s development and learning.  

It wasn’t until in 1975 that we had a Kindergarten Act, or a ‘Barnehagelov’. So, it really took a long time to have the first legislation that were pinpointing the exact institutions that were developed for the youngest children. Not in terms of them being social welfare or child protection, but in terms of being the pedagogical institutions that we have now.  

And it took another 20 years to have the second legislation. In 1996, we had our first framework plan for the pedagogical content and the tasks of kindergartens, or barnehage. And that was really a milestone for us, to have a national curriculum framework or framework plan as we call it. And it – it codified in many ways the practice that was already there.  It’s about the kind of play, the playfulness, the kind of laughs the children have. It was also about outdoor play and it was about social interaction and social development. 

So, these kind of topics were running through everything. And then you could have the learning areas such as communication and text or culture, arts and creativity.  I was in Toronto last year and I was presented with Canadian pedagogical frameworks and to my mind a lot of the same type of topics is recognizable also here.  

In 1996 we had our first kindergarten framework plan. It took another 10 years and a lot of development until we had the third revised Kindergarten Act. So, in 2005, again we had a revision of the Kindergarten Act. Again, it was looking into the roles and responsibilities and it was specifying children’s right to participation and parents’ rights to participation. Which had been there all the time but which was sort of more specific.  

It was again followed by a revised framework plan in 2006, it was a clearer regulation.  Again in 2017, we have had a revision of the framework plan, and the text have been made even more clear. It’s clarifying the responsibilities and the requirements of the kindergartens.