This paper presents a study of educational provisions for newly arrived students (16-19 years old) in transition to upper secondary education in Norway. Question such as how schools can deliver an equal high- quality education to newly arrived students and refuge youth has been posed in many European countries (Bunar, 2018). In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development introduced by the United Nations in 2015, it is one of the goals to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” (SDG4 United Nations, 2015). However, international studies report that the common aim to provide newly arrived migrants and refugees with equal education is contradicted by the lack of “structures for guiding, monitoring and following up implementation at local level”, in addition to the lack of predictable and sustainable funding (Bunar, 2018).

When it comes to Norway, research studies report that newly arrived students of upper secondary school age are vulnerable to underachievement and drop out. (Kirkeberg, Dzamarija, Bratholmen & Strøm, 2019; Bakken & Hyggen, 2018) and this especially concerns refugees and unaccompanied minors youth (Svendsen, Berg, Paulsen, Garvik & Valenta 2018; Lidén, Aasen, Seeberg &Staver 2020). Statistic Norway (2020) reports that during 2013-2019 school year,  25,9 % of young immigrants of age 17 and 38,7 % of young immigrants of age 18 and older dropped out before or within the final year of upper secondary education. In 2017, there were only 59 % of newly arrived students who completed upper secondary education in Norway (Kirkeberg, Dzamarija, Bratholmen & Strøm, 2019).

Previous research report that students with immigrant background experience social segregation and lover sense of belonging in upper secondary education (Chinga-Ramirez, 2015; Frøyland & Gjerustand, 2012). Accordingly, this group of students is at higher risk for not completing upper secondary school (Frøyland & Gjerustand, 2012).

In order to make upper secondary education accessible to newly arrived students of upper secondary school age, a variety of training programmes are offered.  Decline in well-being and drop out in upper secondary school raises questions concerning the relation between the target students and the quality of training programmes that are provided . One such question is whether educational provisions for newly arrived students of upper secondary school age meet the expectations and educational needs of newly arrived students. Another question is how newly arrived students experience their inclusion and sense of belonging in the training programmes.

               Thus, this study focuses on the experiences of newly arrived students with preparatory programme they are allocated to before starting upper secondary education. The programme is designed for newly arrived students who lack qualification from basic school education, who have not completed lower secondary school prior to arriving in Norway, whose education is not considered equivalent to Norwegian one or who have completed lower secondary school but need more training in order to start and complete upper secondary education. This category of students apply to upper secondary education through individual assessment and are allocated to the training programme in different upper secondary schools.

 Accordingly, this study investigates newly arrived students’ experiences with preparatory programme in terms of learners’ social and educational inclusion. I am interested in the experiences of learners who go through the process of integration and at the same time the process of obtaining education.

Knowledge about newly arrived students’ experiences with training programme is important in order to provide equitable educational provisions for young immigrants. Since possible barriers/opportunities associated with students’ social and educational inclusion through training programme may influence students’ further drop out in upper secondary school, their integration, their social status and  place on labor market in Norway.

Qualitative research design is applied in this study. By employing the qualitative mode of inquiry, I attempt to illuminate the opinions that newly arrived students have collected from their experiences with the training programme. Semi – structured interviews with the target group of learners were conducted in three different upper secondary schools that provide the training programme in Oslo municipality. Students were interviewed one month before finishing the training programme. As the study deals with eliciting and analyzing of the experiences of the participants who experienced the same phenomenon, a phenomenological research approach were applied to analyze the data. Themes that are included in interviews are: social and educational inclusion/ exclusion within the school context through students’ own account, integration of newly arrived students in the school environment and with Norwegian peers at school, localization of schools that provide the training programme and what consequences it gets on students’ inclusion and acquisition of Norwegian language, well-being and motivation of newly arrived students and how interaction with Norwegian peers influences acquisition of Norwegian language.

This paper presentation will report on preliminary findings and discuss theoretical perspectives based on inclusion/exclusion. Expected themes are allocation of training programme, the significance of the organization of training programme in separate classes and schools or as integrated programme, the relevance of the educational content in the training programme, heterogeneous group of learners in the programme with different educational needs, the significance of social segregation/integration with Norwegian speaking peers to well-being and motivation of newly arrived students.

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