NARIC guide on Higher Education Systems in the European Union

Courses are measured in semester units. The vekttall is the Norwegian term for a credit unit. The normal work load for one
semester is 10 vekttall, or 20 vekttall for one academic year. Twenty vekttall equals 60 ECTS credits.
At the Faculty of Arts, and the Faculty of Social Sciences, students concentrate their studies in one area at a time, and pass
comprehensive departmental examinations. The most common examination levels required for standard degrees at these two
faculties are the following:
• semesteremne (semester unit) 10 vekttall, taken after one semester of study (offered only in some subjects);
• grunnfag (foundation course) 20 vekttall, taken after two semesters of study;
• mellomfag (intermediate course) 30 vekttall, taken after three semesters of study. A mellomfag normally builds upon a
grunnfag;
• storfag (major subject) 40 vekttall, taken after four semesters of study. The storfag builds upon and includes a mellomfag.
It is available only in some subjects at the Faculty of Arts;
• hovedfag (at graduate level), normally a four semester course after completion of a cand.mag. degree and
mellomfag/storfag in the same field.
Embetsstudium is a five or six year professional graduate programme leading to a degree in one specific field, i.e. law,
medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, theology, psychology, economics and civil engineering.
At the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, individual courses give vekttall. Courses normally count for between one
and five vekttall each.
The university colleges have a different structure.
Instruction at the universities is given in various forms, depending on the subject area. Lectures to larger groups are held in
auditoriums, while smaller groups and seminars meet in classrooms. Instruction may also include term papers, field work,
excursions and laboratory work.
The Norwegian university system requires students to be independent. There are relatively few hours of lectures per week.
Students are expected to structure their time outside lectures to include extensive reading, participation in group work, and
individual study. Professors are available for regular academic counselling.
I.4. Transfer of credits
I.4.1. National credit transfer
The universities, the university colleges and the college sector can all confer their own degrees, and programmes taken at one
institution must be fully recognised by another institution (i.e. 60 vekttall from an engineering college will be given the same
number of vekttall at a university). However, each of these institutions is free to determine whether
additional subjects/examinations must be taken in order to qualify for a particular subject/degree.
Until 1 January 1996, private institutions could apply to have their programmes evaluated by the National Coordinating
Commission (Nasjonalt koordinerende utvalg; NKU) which was an advisory board under the Norwegian Council of
Universities (Det norske universitetsrad. With the implementation of the new Act of 12 May 1995 relating to universities and
colleges, the NKU was discontinued and the Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs are presently evaluating an
organisational replacement for the functions of the NKU.
The last NKU list of evaluated programmes and the evaluation results (i.e. how many vekttall should be recognised within a
university degree) dates from October 1995.