Being a complex phenomenon, school drop-out represents a significant challenge in society, both economically, socially, and on a personal level (Skedsmo & Mausethagen, 2024). In many ways, it may be defined as a “wicked problem”, where strategies and policy initiatives not necessarily lead to counteracting such unwanted developments (Rittel & Webber, 1973). Within the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Cooperation Area (EEA), a target has been set to lower the level of early school leaving to 9% by 2030 (Eurostat, 2023). However, in the Norwegian context, about 80% of pupils complete vocational or study skills within 5-6 years according to Statistics Norway (SSB, 2023).  In Norway, a variety of measures have been implemented in recent decades at national and regional levels to increase completion rates, without a clear and lasting decrease in dropout rates from upper-secondary school being observed. Consequently, there is a considerable discrepancy between supranational objectives and the completion rates in Norwegian upper-secondary education. Most studies within social sciences that have examined early school leaving have linked the phenomenon to a myriad of risk factors that are either social, contextual, or psychological in nature (Abebe et al., 2016). However, fewer have examined the issue from a governance perspective. In the governance of education, legal, economic, and ideological instruments are used to influence local actors in a specific direction to counteracting early school leaving (Lundgren, 2002). As part of the ProAct-project (“Professional Actors’ Work to Retain Students in Secondary Education”), we investigated how politicians and civil servants at the national level experience the challenges of achieving the goals in law, state policy and guidelines. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to increased knowledge about national authorities' expectations towards school authorities and schools concerning their role in counteracting school dropout and central national actors’ reflections of the expectations. The following research questions have formed the basis for analyses: first, what expectations for the prevention of school dropout are expressed in central policy documents?; second, how do central national actors reflect on the state's expectations of schools and school owners over time when it comes to preventing school dropout?; and finally, which ideas, strategies and justifications emerge in the actors' reflections? Here, we first draw on theory of expectation-based governance and the theory of institutionalization. We position ourselves within neo-institutional theory (Røvik, 2023), where governance is seen as a central process in the control exercised between the central, state level and the local, school authority and school levels. As Paulsen and Høyer (2016) point out, there has been considerable increase in the complexity of how the education sector is governed, through a wide variety of indirect and “soft” forms of governance, expressed through various indicators such as national tests and inspection results. Often these forms of governance take place at “an arm’s length” (Clarke, 2014). Secondly, we are inspired by elements from cultural-historical activity theory that distinguish between different institutions, or what are referred to as activity systems in society serving different societal overarching purposes (Engeström & Sannino, 2010). In todays’ society, activity systems are not isolated, they interact with each other in different ways when actors seek to together to solve complex issues such as dropout. Collaborating across institutions and support services on dropout requires crossing institutional boundaries to collaborate, which has the potential for learning for learning, but can also be challenging (Akkerman & Bakker, 2012) since the different activity systems make use of partly different knowledge resources and are subject to different regulations (Jensen, 2020).

In this paper, we firstly analyzed expert interviews with key actors in Norwegian education policy and government administration. Such interviews can provide knowledge about complex processes of government policy development over multiple time periods. We interviewed a purposive selection of central politicians and civil servants at the national level. Secondly, we examined key governing documents addressing dropout. Our informants are categorized as experts since they possess so-called “expert knowledge” (Van Audenhove & Donders, 2019). It can also be argued that the selected informants can also be categorized as what Van Audenhove & Donders (2019) coin “elites”, considering the positions they have/have held in the governance and central leadership of education with responsibility for, among other things, measures to reduce dropout. Elite positions can give the person concerned power, while knowledge can give the person concerned status. Our primary data for the analysis are interviews, and the selected policy documents are secondary data and serve as background for the interview material. Altogether we have analyzed three policy documents, i.e. one legal document and two white papers. The interviews and the documents have been subject to qualitative thematic analysis (Clarke & Braun, 2017) constitutes the method for both types of data. Coding and categorization were carried out in two stages. Data were first read to grasp the overall meaning of the texts and transcripts, and secondly examined to more closely to identify key themes arising from policy and interview material.

When civil servants and politicians reflect on the leadership of education at the local level, especially in relation to measures taken to combat dropout, several discourses arise from the data. Dropout is framed, among other things, as first, a time problem, where early efforts are necessary to support vulnerable students in their development during preschool and primary schooling. Secondly, dropout is defined as resource problem, concerning insufficient resources allocated for follow-up and poor utilization of the room for action already existing in the system. A third problem concerns lack of ample coordination and follow-up, in and across levels where there is a lack of cooperation and moreover “blockages in the system”. Fourth, the interviewees point out that the lack of improvement derives from weakly developed leadership and management in and across levels. Finally, there is according to the experts “stretches in the team”, and considerable differences locally. In conclusion, a main finding in the study is that state actors are convinced that (most) schools are now well on their way to increasing completion rates, but that there are large variations in how schools and school authorities perceive, interpret and enact measures when national and local goals are to be translated into practical action (Røvik, 2023). Another main finding highlighted in the study is that schools to varying degrees utilize the room for maneuver expressed in both legislation and policy documents when choosing strategies to counteract dropout and thus increase completion rates in upper-secondary education. Finally, lack of interaction across levels and actors, and weak utilization of the room for maneuver may also be an expression of inadequate management of a system that is largely characterized by trust-based solutions when various reform-oriented strategies are to be introduced in schools (Karseth & Møller, 2014).

Abebe, D. S., Frøyland, L. R., Bakken, A., & Von Soest, T. (2016). Municipal-level differences in depressive symptoms among adolescents in Norway: Results from the cross-national Ungdata study. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 44(1), 47–54. Clarke, J. (2014). Inspections: governing at a distance. In: S. Grek & J. Lindgren, (Eds.), Governing by Inspection. Studies in European Education. (p. 11–26). Routledge. Clarke, V., & Braun, V. (2017). Thematic analysis. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(3), 297-298. Engeström, Y., & Sannino, A. (2010). Studies of expansive learning: Foundations, findings, and future challenges. Educational Research Review, 5(1), 1–24. Eurostat (2023). Early leavers from education and training. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Early_leavers_from_education_and_training Jensen, R. (2020). Professional development of school leadership as boundary work: patterns of initiatives and interactions based on a Norwegian case. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 25(4), 515–532. Karseth, B., & Møller, J. (2014). «Hit eit steg og dit eit steg»-Et institusjonelt blikk på reformarbeid i skolen. Norsk pedagogisk tidsskrift, 98(6), 452–468. Lundgren, U. P. (2002). Political governing of the education sector: Reflections on change. Studies in Educational Policy and Educational Philosophy, 2002(1), 26781. Mausethagen, S., & Skedsmo, G. (2024). Hvordan ser forskningen på ‘frafallʼ i videregående opplæring i Norge ut? Norsk Pedagogisk Tidsskrift, (2), 108–122. Paulsen, J. M., & Høyer, H. C. (2016). Norwegian superintendents are mediators in the governance chain. In: L. Moos et al. (Eds.), Nordic Superintendents: Agents in a broken chain. (p. 99–138). Springer. Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169. SSB (2023). Gjennomføring i videregående opplæring. Statistisk sentralbyrå. https://www.ssb.no/utdanning/videregaende-utdanning/statistikk/gjennomforing-i-videregaende-opplaering Van Audenhove, L. & Donders, K. (2019). Talking to people III: Expert interviews and elite interviews. In: H. Van den Bulck et al. (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Methods for Media Policy Research (p. 179–197). Palgrave Macmillan.