Norway is facing an educational crisis that it acknowledges having helped create. In 2016, the municipality of Oslo decided to distribute iPads to children from the age of 5 upon entering school — without parental controls and with little pedagogical structure for device use. Books were gradually replaced in classrooms, and student engagement with reading began to fall consistently.
Data from PISA, the OECD's international assessment applied to 15-year-old students, reveals the impact. Norway's reading score dropped from 513 points in 2015 — its historical peak — to 477 points in 2022, landing virtually at the OECD average (476 points). The decline was severe, but far from the worst in the rankings: the country placed around 22nd among the 81 nations participating in PISA 2022, well clear of last place. Researchers at the University of Oslo also warn that engagement with book reading has been replaced by screen reading — and the data shows that students who read on screens perform significantly worse than those who read on paper.
The decline, however, cannot be attributed exclusively to iPads. The OECD's own report notes that PISA 2022 recorded the largest global drop in history in both mathematics and reading, widely associated with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic — and that countries such as Australia, Belgium, Finland, and the Netherlands also saw declines before 2018. In Norway, factors such as greater pedagogical autonomy for teachers and structural inequalities within the education system worsened the picture.
The Norwegian government's response has been vigorous. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre pledged to make the country the "best in the world at reading." Oslo's main public library, with 1,100 seats, has become a hub of activities for children. In 2024, the 23 branches of the Deichman network recorded a loan record of 2.2 million books, half of them to children. Programs such as "Boklek" (book play) bring kindergarten classes to local libraries before the school year begins.
In March 2026, the government announced a sweeping reform for younger students: iPads out, more recess and physical activity in. The Ministry of Education even considered removing "digital skills" from the five core pillars of Norwegian education. Minister Kari Nessa Nordtun declared that schools need to "see the whole child" and that it is necessary to "put the brakes on" excess technology for younger students. The debate, however, remains divided: the Conservative Party fears that fewer classroom hours will simply result in more time in daycare without pedagogical supervision.
The Norwegian experience serves as a global warning about the unreflective adoption of technology in the classroom. This is not a story of absolute failure or last place in any ranking — claims circulating on social media exaggerate the actual data. But the decline is real, the diagnosis is serious, and Norway is betting that the path back runs, quite literally, through the pages of a book.
Sources:
OECD – PISA 2022 Country Note: Norway (December 2023)
TheGlobalEconomy.com – Norway PISA Reading Scores (2000–2022)
University of Oslo / QUINT – "PISA 2018 results show that reading engagement in Norway is declining" (2019)
The Local Norway – "How Norway plans to transform school life for young children" (March 2026)
Al Jazeera – "Unprecedented decline in global literacy scores, OECD report says" (December 2023)
PISA 2022 Worldwide Ranking – Reading (IADB/OECD, 2023)