Students like Hussna Janjua are overrepresented in higher education

In the 1970s, Hussna Janjua’s father moved from Pakistan to Norway as a migrant worker. He settled in Oslo and started a family. Her father and mother have always worked hard to ensure that their nine children have the best conditions for a good life.

– My parents have always encouraged me to put a good effort into my school work, and they advised me to get a higher education. They never had the opportunity to study themselves, so that is perhaps why they really see the value of it, says Janjua.

Studying more and choosing other study programmes

A report recently published by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir) shows that many Norwegian-born students with immigrant parents choose the same career path as Janjua.

Around half of all Norwegian-born with immigrant parents aged 19–24 studied in 2022. This is a much higher proportion than for immigrants (25 per cent) and the rest of the population (39 per cent).

In addition, more Norwegian-born students with immigrant parents study economic and administrative subjects, bachelor’s degrees in social studies and legal and natural science subjects, compared to immigrants and the rest of the population.

– I have noticed it myself, that many Norwegian-born students with immigrant parents study engineering, says Janjua.

She is referring to the years she took a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at Oslomet. After three years at Oslomet, she started her master’s degree in construction and environmental engineering at NTNU.

There were far fewer immigrants or Norwegian-born with immigrant parents than at Oslomet.

– When I read about the study at NTNU, it was clear that the study was both male-heavy and consisted of few Norwegian-born female students with an immigrant background. This really only gave me further motivation to start the study, because I see the need for more women in the sector, she says.

Pupils from all corners of the world

Janjua grew up in Stovner in Oslo. In both primary and secondary school, she was in classes with students from all corners of the world.

– One of the advantages of this was that everyone had the same background, so we understood each other well. Either the parents came to Norway as migrant workers or refugees. In addition, many of us had the same culture and traditions, so we met in this, she says.

After secondary school, Janjua saw the need to step out of the “bubble” as she calls it. The “bubble” she often felt the class at primary and secondary school was in, with little perspective on the outside world outside the environment.

She applied to Elvebakken upper secondary school in Oslo. The school is the most popular in Oslo, and when Janjua applied for study specialization, the average for being accepted was a staggering 5.44.

– I went from being in a class with almost only immigrants and Norwegian-born students of immigrants in primary and secondary school, to a school with almost only ethnic Norwegians. In my class at upper secondary school, there were only five of us pupils who were Norwegian-born to immigrant parents, she says, laughing.

At upper secondary school, she chose to specialize in science, so that she would have the options open to being able to study science in the future.

– I have always liked and been good at science, so it has always been clear to me that I was going to study something within this, she says.

The report that was recently published is called: “Diversity and inequality in higher education”. There it also emerges that the parents’ level of education has less influence on whether Norwegian-born with immigrant parents obtain higher education compared to the other two groups.

There is a particularly large difference among 19–24-year-olds with parents with primary school education. Here, the proportion studying is 39 per cent among Norwegian-born with immigrant parents, and 15 per cent among the rest of the population (that is, those without an immigrant background).

I think economics is an important factor

Janjua believes that many Norwegian-born children of immigrant parents have a strong inner motivation to take higher education because they have seen how hard the parents have worked to give their children the best possible life in a new country.

– I have seen how hard my parents have worked to give us children a good life, and I therefore have a strong desire to make my parents proud, and to be more successful than they have been career-wise, she says.

Economics is probably also an important motivator for many Norwegian-born of immigrant parents choosing to take higher education, Janjua believes.

– It’s clear, most people want to live as comfortable a life as possible, where they don’t have to worry about the economy. Many children of immigrant parents are from low-income families and have seen how demanding it can be. It is therefore natural that they want a different future for themselves, she says.

Different student groups make different subject and program choices

As previously mentioned, it is most popular for Norwegian-born with immigrant parents to take a bachelor’s degree in economic and administrative subjects. A full 16 percent of this group choose this field of study. Among immigrants and the rest of the population, economics and administration are also the most popular subjects to study, and around 13 per cent of the student body in these groups study within this field of study.

Norwegian-born with an immigrant background are also distinguished by the fact that, to a greater extent than the other student groups, they study bachelor’s degrees in social studies, as well as legal and natural science subjects.

Both immigrants and those born in Norway with immigrant parents who are studying, to a greater extent than students from the rest of the population, attend engineering and various health education courses.

There are more Norwegian-born with immigrant parents who study medicine (3.3 per cent) compared to immigrants (1.7 per cent) and the general population (2 per cent). Immigrants and Norwegian-born with immigrant parents also choose to study dentistry and pharmacy to a greater extent than the rest of the population.

Both immigrants and Norwegian-born with immigrant parents are underrepresented in primary school teacher training.

According to the report, there are the most students with an immigrant background at Oslomet, the University of Oslo (UiO), Østfold University College (HiØ) and the University of Southeast Norway (USN).

The Police College (PHS) and the Armed Forces College (FHS) end up at the bottom of the list, with only four percent and one percent of students with an immigrant background respectively.