Hundreds of immigrant kids sent abroad to study
Hundreds of Norwegian-Somali children are being sent to study in Somalia, Kenya, Egypt and Britain, because their parents are concerned that they are struggling to prosper inside the Norwegian system, according to a new report from Norway’s Institute for Social Research.
“Parents often find that their children are seen as weak learners, often because they speak Norwegian worse than their peers,” Hilde Lidén, the author of the report Transnational Adolescence, told Aftenposten newspaper. “It worries parents that children are not challenged enough in Norway.
According to the survey, 1,900 Norwegian-Somali children, some 13 percent of all children of Somali origin, were recorded as living outside Norway in 2012.
Some 60 percent of those were believed to have moved alone, indicating that they are overseas for education.
Of those, some 200 were registered as living in Somalia, mainly in the more peaceable Puntland and Somaliland districts, with the rest split between Egypt, Britain, and Kenya.
“They believe that the education system in Kenya, Britain and Egypt is better than what’s available in Norway,” the report concludes. “The perception is that Norwegian schools do not teach basic skills, and that children of relatives in other countries have advanced much further.”
She said that Norwegians of Pakistani and Iraqi origin also frequently sent their children to be educated outside the country.
Lidén argues that as well as believing that education is better outside Norway, parents often want to give their children exposure to their home culture and religion.
Their Norwegian incomes can also buy their children a better standard of living in their home countries than they can afford in Norway.
The Local