Utdanningsetaten, Lønn | Cut hard on electoral promises

This is a comment. It is the attitude of the writer that is expressed.

It has not been more than a month since Oslo Finance Councilor Einar Wilhelmsen presented the budget for 2021. The tune of the review is that it must be drastically adjusted. It is due to the crown.

This does not prevent a salary party for the directors above. On October 21, Dagbladet was able to report that a large number of directors of the Education Agency with a million salary have received fat salary supplements. Some of them have received a supplement of up to 14.7 per cent, with the highest salary increase exceeding NOK 140,000.

This does not apply to teachers in schools. Teachers are fed up with a 1.7 percent pay increase.

It amounts to a few thousand dollars a year.

Also read: Mayor of SV in Oslo at the mayor salary peak

Electoral promises are cut

At the same time that teachers receive weak salary development, none of the electoral promises made by city council parties last year will be fulfilled. Before the municipal elections, voters were lured with both free school meals and an extension of the scheme with free school activities.

These were electoral promises that would cost many hundreds of millions of crowns. Voters who expected a million sparks over the Oslo school will be disappointed. There is no money for that.

But a million splashes on the directors at the top, there is money to be made.

And that with a council of the SV equality party at the head.

Also read: Spend 4.5 million on moving director

Controversial city council and ideological conflict

The responsibility of the Education Agency rests with Councilor Inga Marte Thorkildsen. She has been a councilor for education and knowledge since December 2017.

Thorkildsen quickly entered into a strong conflict with Astrid Søgnen, director of the Education Agency for a long time. Søgnen had for many years been instrumental in building the Oslo school for the best of the country. This was done through testing students and requirements for teachers during a long period of bourgeois rule.

Testing and requirements are not exactly what SV school policy characterizes. In contrast, SV is opposed to both grades and homework.

The conflict between Thorkildsen and Søgnen was therefore clearly ideological in character. The school board just doesn’t want a school with an emphasis on achievement.

This is also reflected in the City Council’s work to reform the admission bases for upper secondary school, where SV in particular wants to move away from free choice of schools and grade-based admission.

Here you can read more posts from Kjell-Magne Rystad.

Lots of riots this fall too

The unrest at the Education Agency did not end at all after Astrid Søgnen was forced to resign almost two years ago.

In September this year, it emerged that all employees of the agency’s core Learning Environment team had resigned their positions in protest. This team has worked to help schools with cases of bullying, student dissatisfaction, and conflict.

But now they may have been intimidated. By the direction.

Part of the reason the Learning Environment Team left was that Marte Gerhardsen, who took over as the new director of the Education Agency in 2019, had reorganized the Education Agency on a voluntary basis where she paid little attention to the contributions.

The loudest criticism came from the resigned Leader of the Learning Environment Team, Inger Bergkastet.

She expressed concern The indefensible system of the school owner at work with Chapter 9A of the Education Act. As a consequence, the section leader decided to resign from his position ».

Also read: The SV City Council cannot bear to be contradicted by professionals

Root, ideology and salaried party

The development at the Oslo school is clearly going in the wrong direction under the board that is there now.

It has become a system characterized by the arrogance of power, organizational disorder and a lack of focus on what is most important: student learning.

In addition to all this, there is the SV school policy with strong ideological guidelines. In SV school, everything should be the same. This is most easily accomplished without demanding anything from anyone. Then everything will be just as bad.

Therefore, Inga Marte Thorkildsen offers neither peace in the Education Agency nor quality in school. Neither are election promises of free school meals and school activities.

But millions of salaries for directors, she delivers.