To Our guests from Italy

I hope you have had a god night’s sleep after yesterday’s long journey from Italy.

The Norwegian students are also here. The two groups have already started the process of getting to know each other and to form friendships. With us are also the project leader at our school, Øystein Risan, whom you met last night, and the contact teacher for the class and the school’s councillor, Ivar Roald.

I am certain that we at this school, and the local community, will do our best to make you feel welcome. May be in the same way as the Venetian sea captain Pietro Querini tells from his experiences in the year 1432 - at “Culo Mundi” (the end of the world), a bit futher north along the coast than where we are now - (67’ og 50’’ north). This story is probably well known in Italy. But in short: Pietro Querini and his 10 shipswrecked, Italian seafarers went ashore on the Island of Røst, in the Lofoten archipelago. They stayed on the island, which they called “L’isola di Santi” (the island of salvation) for 3 months, before they made their way back to Italy. Pietro Querini has later been called the first exporter of stockfish from Lofoten to Italy.

Like Pietro Querini, you come to Norway at a time which is often characterized by rain and wind and short and chilly days. I might have wished that you had come in summer when the days and the nights are light. But this is Norway. By the way, it is possibly appropriate when we consider the name of the project “North wind – South sun”.

It is with excitement we at Haram vidaregåande skule look forward to this project, the cooperation the coming days, and later in Italy in spring. The visit is a result of Stefano Gorla’s visit here in Haram in December last Year, who after a while linked us to a school in Northern Italy - Istituto Tecnico Industriale Arturo Malignani. Lucky for us, this is a school with long experiences from international school-cooperation and school-exchange. We have benefited greatly from this in the preparatory work, and I am confident it will be of great advantage in the project itself. Maybe we already in this phase during your stay in Norway, can lay the foundations for strengthening and extending our cooperation.

Now a little about the school and the society: The Norwegian society has historically had limited resources, a small population and relatively few cities and towns. Seen in a European context the Norwegian society is relatively egalitarian. Furthermore, there has been a deliberate policy to reduce social inequality and to promote integration. The school system has been seen as an important instrument to achieve these political goals. This has resulted in Norway being in the forefront among nations when it comes to general education level. Oil has been the resource which more than anything has given us the economic foundation for such a policy.

The Norwegian school has therefore been carcaterized by integration, where there is room for all pupils or students – regardless of economy (poor-rich), social rank (high-low), sex (boys-girls), geography (country-city), family background (academic-vocational) and individual qualities (ability-motivation etc.) All people are entitled to an education that matches their interests and abilities within the ordinary school system. In Norway we therefore have many small schools – even when it comes to further education that offer many different kinds of studies.

Our school is one of those schools that I have described above, with 200 students and 45 staff. We have 5 lines of education, where both students with strong qualifications and students with limited abilities attend. We offer both vocational training and general subjects – what we call a combined school.

Compared with Istituto Tecnico Industriale Arturo Malignani, our school is a small one. But still I believe we have common interests and common goals, which is the foundation for the cooperation we have entered into. Both schools want to be innovative schools, with focus on active learning, use of information technology in our teaching, alternative learning arenas, cooperation with institutions outside school and internationalisation.

Now back to today or rather the coming fourthnight. We have made a plan with different activities at school, in the local environment and the county, and as might be expected the focus is on the theme for the project – alternative sources of energy at different latitudes. Still, unforseen circumstances may force us into making changes as we go along. The plan involves a tight programme, with a lot of activities, and some days will be longer than the ordinary school and work day. But we hope this will turn out well. Now we start working towards achieving the goal we have set as far as language, culture and technical contents is conserned.

We wish ourselves good luck!

Brattvåg, 12.10.2004

Jøstein Taftø
Principal

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