Pupil wrote false medical certificates to get a valid absence – was convicted

The 19-year-old must pay a fine for having submitted false medical certificates to the school he attended.

The 19-year-old delivered the fake medical certificates to the contact teacher at the upper secondary school he attends. The aim was to get a valid absence, and thus avoid exceeding the absence limit. According to it, you cannot have more than 10 per cent undocumented absence in a subject. Then, as a general rule, you will not receive a half-yearly assessment with grade or position grade in the subject.

The false medical certificates were submitted repeatedly from October last year to January this year.

But the young man was discovered. Then the school and the police took action. The 19-year-old was reported and has now been convicted of document forgery in Follo and Nordre Østfold District Court.

– Trying to be a good person

The 19-year-old tells Aftenposten that he knows what he did was stupid.

– But I didn’t know it was illegal. I thought it was just a joke.

He says he was shocked when he was reported. At the same time, he emphasizes that he deserved it, and that he has accepted the punishment.

– But if I had known it was going to be such a big deal, I would never have done it. I try to be a good person.

The teenager says that the document forgery happened during a period when he was very ill, and that it was difficult to get hold of the GP. He claims that he called the GP’s office many times, stood in the queue for a long time without getting an answer, that he himself trooped up to the doctor’s office and went to the hospital to get help.

– I really tried, he says.

Received penalty discount

The 19-year-old has confessed unreservedly. Thus, the case was settled by so-called confession sentence confession sentenceThe criminal case is settled without a prosecution decision and main hearing. The accused receives a reduced sentence for having confessed. The offense cannot result in imprisonment for more than ten years..

The usual penalty for forgery is a fine or imprisonment of up to two years.

The court thought NOK 10,000 was an appropriate starting point for punishment. In this case, the fine was reduced by NOK 2,000 because he confessed and because he did not know that what he did was punishable.

The court also emphasized that he is young and that the scope was small, with four falsified medical certificates for a total of eight days of absence.

Subject to changes

The 19-year-old is not alone in finding the absence limit difficult. In 2019, a 17-year-old in Agder was sentenced to 100 hours of community service for the same. The student escaped prison because he was under 18 years of age. Last autumn, an 18-year-old in Skien was given a 14-day suspended prison sentence for falsifying a medical certificate.

The debate about how many absences you can have in a subject has been going on for a long time.

Recently, the Norwegian Directorate of Education has proposed extensive changes to the absence rules, including:

• Every time you are away from school, an absence is recorded for the first three days.
• The limit for absences is increased to 15 percent before you fail a subject.
• If the limit is exceeded, the headmaster decides whether the student is still in the subject.
• A self-report is submitted instead of a doctor’s certificate in case of absence.
• Pupils under the age of 18 must bring self-registration from their parents, while those over 18 must submit their own.

The new proposal also equates all absences, be it illness, truancy or time off for organizational work and sports.

The proposal has until recently been out for consultation. Many have been critical. In total, over 250 responses were received from county councils, secondary schools, political organizations and individuals.