Obtaining data on education

To order data on education, you need to complete the order form for education (Excel, in Norwegian) and select the variables you want. You should then enclose this form with the application you send to Statistics Norway to obtain data.

Education data is held in the National Education Database (NUDB), an events database that enables figures from many different years to be compared. These comparisons in turn enable broader and more extensive analyses within the field of education to be made. The NUDB enables throughput analyses of, for example, the duration of a person’s education and their study choices.

More information and documentation on what is held in the NUDB, the structure of the database, changes in data and definitions can be found in the article National Education Database NUDB. Education data is stored as events, where the activities are registered with a start and end date, but can also be organised as situation data, with a typical situation per year. Examples of this are education currently in progress and highest level of completed education.

Here is an overview of the tables in NUDB and links to detailed documentation.

Updated annually

The education data covers registered students as per 1 October, completed education for the preceding school year and the highest level of education completed as per 1 October each year. It also includes data from a variety of other registers. Statistics are published and data for research is released during the first half of the following year.

Definitions and documentation of variables

Definitions and documentation of key variables in the education statistics are given in the “About the statistics” relating to the individual statistics within the field. The order form includes links to definitions of all variables and code lists.

Data in other areas

You can also obtain various other data sets with variables within other areas. Remember to enclose all of the order forms you have completed with the application to obtain data.