Norway’s state sector strike is ramped up 

More than 3,500 public sector employees will be on strike in Norway on Monday, with the police, students and passport officers affected by the action. 

Norway’s justice sector will be one of the hardest hit areas by the strike. 

“It will affect passports, investigations and preventive measures in the police,” Unn Alma Skatvold from the Norwegian police federation said to Dagens Næringsliv. 

Several other ministries and agencies, such as The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE), The Norwegian Tax Administration, and public universities are affected. 

Workers in the Federation of Norwegian Professional Associations (Akademikerne) and the Confederation of Unions for Professionals (Unio) are on strike over wages and the structure or the collective bargaining agreement offered. 

Travel out of Bergen and Oslo airports could be affected by strikes 

Airport workers and employers have failed to come to an agreement by midnight mediation deadline, and a strike could be announced on Monday. 

Mediator Carl Petter Martinsen told NRK that while some progress has been made, more must be done. 

If an agreement isn’t reached, around 400 workers at Oslo Airport Gardermoen and Bergen Airport Flesland could strike – which could greatly impact travel into and out of both airports. 

Issues with Nynorsk exams 

Norway’s Directorate of Education has apologised after several errors were found in its Nynorsk exam at the high school level. 

Students who sat the exam found that the final test was full of errors. The tasks were written by the Norwegian Directorate of Education. 

Per Kristian Larsen-Evjen, a department director at the Directorate of Education, said the issues were due to a internal failure in their quality assurance routines. 

He said that students would not have their results affected by the errors made by the education directorate. 

Michelin stars in Norway to be announced 

Michelin stars for the Nordic region will be awarded at a presentation in Helsinki on Monday. 

At the last ceremony, 20 Norwegian restaurants were recognised with stars. However, since then, some establishments have restructured or closed their doors. 

Sven Erik Renaa, founder of the Renaa restaurant group and two-star restaurant Re-naa, was optimistic that more restaurants would be recognised for their hard work. 

“I think there will definitely be three or four new stars for Norway this year. And I don’t think that much will change when it comes to the restaurants that have already been awarded Michelin stars. Including us, I think it will be the status quo,” Renaa told Norwegian newswire NTB.