Renew the curriculum in Norway has become the object of controversy. Last week the newspaper of the left-wing Klassekampen progressed, the news about the exclusion of the Holocaust and the Second World War in the draft that has made the conservative government of Erna Solberg to amend the elementary and secondary education. The “Fagnynyelsen”, the project which aims to innovate the education of the young norwegians in 2019, focuses on content that is “relevant for the future,” say its leaders.
One of the subjects that more waste is going to suffer corresponds to the social sciences, especially history, which falls in favor of topics with a contemporary perspective. As a result of this modification, will the mention of historical events such as the Second Great War, during which Germany invaded the country and ruled through a military administration and a government of norwegians related. “The Holocaust and the Second World War must have a place completely natural in the school curriculum. It is unthinkable to present a plan of studies in 2018 without including the greatest civil conflict of our time”, he lamented to the daily Norwegian Ervin Kohn, president of the jewish community of Oslo.
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In the same line is expressed Irene Trysnes, associate professor of Social Sciences at the University of Agder, co-author of a protest letter against the draft in a number of university professors are criticizing the new curriculum in the field of social sciences in which, they argue, “so much the story as the geographical aspects are at risk of disappearing”. “Some goals are very specific, while others are more vague. It emphasizes that students are going to learn the history of the sami, but there is nothing about the Second World War and the Holocaust,” emphasized the researchers from Agder in the letter.
“The new plans of study are not very concerned about how the past has influenced the Gencobahis present, when they emphasize values such as tolerance and democracy. If we understand the present time, we must also understand how it has been throughout history”, noted the professor Trysnes in Klassekampen.
The leader of the Union of Education Norway, Steffen Handal, he feared that the plans of study were so confused, that the teacher can find support in them. “It is difficult for a society to accept that one of the conflicts of civilization’s great history does not need to be addressed in the school,” said Handal.
The news has sparked a social debate. The opposition parties are calling on the government of Solberg recule. In the networks, politicians such as the labour and historian Anniken Huitfeld, former minister of Labor, Culture and Equality in the government of Jens Stoltenberg, who expressed contrary to the measure via Twitter: “it Is a serious omission if the Holocaust is not mentioned in the school curriculum”.
however, some criticism of the academic world and political suggest that neither the Holocaust nor the Second World War is mentioned explicitly in the plans of study from the educational reform of 1994, during the last term of the labour Gro Brundtland. “The Second World War and the Holocaust is not mentioned explicitly in the current curriculum, although these historical content are much more extensive in the new draft. Teachers norwegians are very competent, and I am not concerned that the Second World War, fall of the teaching in Norwegian schools. But we must not forget that the text books are based on the objectives of knowledge, and it is natural to think that the more specific goals also have the highest importance in the development of new teaching materials, ” said professor Trydnes to the header Klassekampen.
