NSO wants to merge all student welfare organizations in Norway. The Welfare Councils in Norway are critical of this proposal.

On Tuesday, 10 December, Liva Gjeldvik, leader of the Western Norway Welfare Council (Velferdstinget Vest), spoke to Khrono on behalf of the Welfare Councils in Norway. There, she expressed strong criticism of what NSO proposes in its welfare policy platform.

NSO’s proposal involves, in the long term, merging all student welfare organizations in Norway into one large organization, structured with regional councils for different divisions. This organization would be led by the leader of NSO, who has simultaneously emphasized the importance of the welfare organization being led by a student.

Gjeldvik points out that different regions have different needs and notes that the proposed regional councils would only have an advisory role, without decision-making authority. How the regions would be divided has not yet been clarified. It is also worth noting that all 14 of the current student welfare organizations today have a student as chair of the board.

The Welfare Council in Gjøvik, Ålesund, and Trondheim supports the points raised by Liva Gjeldvik in the Khrono article. Our leader, Vilja, builds on these points in a Universitetsavisa article, which you can find below. We believe that the structural changes proposed by NSO would weaken student welfare services and have consequences for the operation of the welfare organizations, especially if a national, fixed semester fee were to be introduced.

You can read more about this in Khrono by CLICKING HERE.

You can read more about this in Universitetsavisa by CLICKING HERE.