Christian schools in Norway have financial troubles

Sundby is the senior adviser of the Association of Christian Independent Schools. He sees that many Christian schools are struggling with their finances. Costs of teachers’ salaries and electricity went up while the Norwegian government is cutting down subsidies, he points out to Dagen.

Twenty of the thirty-one independent Christian schools lost money last year. And not a little bit, but millions of NOK (hundreds of thousands of euros). Part of the problem is that the schools received less money from the government because public schools, according to calculations, spent much less during the last two years due to Covid, Sundby explains. “The independent schools were thus punished for this in 2022”, he points out. The reason for this is that Christian schools get subsidies based on what public schools spent two years ago. And in that period, public schools were closed due to the pandemic.

Construction

Tryggheim Forus Videregående Skole in Sandnes suffered the greatest deficit of money. The educational institute is owned by the Norwegian Lutheran Mission and has a negative balance of 8.8 million NOK (close to 800,000 euros). Principal Leif Kåre Kolnes says to Dagen that the economic hardships are the result of the construction of their new building being put on hold. That led to a loss of four million NOK (close to 400,000 euros).

Also, the school has to deal with more costs and a cut in state aid. The plan is to decrease the debt down to a million NOK and make a positive profit again in 2024, Kåre Kolnes says.

Money

Other schools had to lay off employees to save money. One of them is Danielsen Videregående Skole in Bergen. The school lost ten teachers due to lack of money, principal Birger Danielsen told Dagen earlier. “Unfortunately, this means that several skilled and good employees will not have a job with us from the autumn”, Danielsen said last March. It was the third time that the school had to downsize.

Salmon

There are also opposite stories, Vart Land notes. Val Videregående Skole in Nærøysund in Trøndelag is one of the ten schools that did not suffer a deficit. It made a large profit of 9,814,000 NOK (almost 900,000 euros). The main reason for this is not because the school received more grants but because it did some activities on the side to earn more money. For example, the school sold salmon and did other farming activities. These are all connected to the courses taught at the school.