Public Institutions in Vennesla

Public Institutions in Vennesla

By Trond Pedersen and Frode Jacobsen

Vennesla has many public institutions. They are founded by taxes, and are designed to help people in difficult situations.

Institutions that are run by the state

Welfare service: This institution gives money to retired people, those who can not work, and temporary foundings to people that can not work because of their physical state. These people are often waiting for public medical treatment. This periode can often be long and expensive, so sometimes it pays off to pay for private hospital treatment.

Another institution tries to find work for people who are in some way disabled and unable to do hard physical work. They often get deskjobs, and when necessary it provides courses to prepare them for actual work.

Institutions that are run by Vennesla itself

There is one main office with many departments:

Children's protection. This institution takes care of children in need. It can if needed take them away from their parents.

Work training. When people have never had a job, or if it's a while since their last one, it can be hard to go straight back to working. Therefor they have made a program that helps them with this.

Immigration work. This institution helps immigrants adapt to the Norwegian society. They give them money and shelter.

Institution for drug/alcohol abuse. This institution has programs to help people stop abusing.

In addition to this, the institution gives money to people who feel that they need more money than the social welfare institution can provide them.

Schools.

The children may, if their parents want to, start in the pre-school when they’re 2 years old. When the children are 6 years old, they start in first grade at school. They go to the primary school until they’re 12 or 13 years old. (7^th grade) At school they have basic subjects like Maths, Norwegian, Social studies, English and other usual classes. In Vennesla there are 6 or 7 primary schools. When the children are 13 or 14 years old they’ll start secondary school.

At secondary school they can choose between classes like languages or practical project work. Vennesla have 2 secondary schools. After secondary school all further school is voluntary. You can take trade/craft or vocational studies. Or school that leads to university or college.

Vennesla Junior High School
is a school for students between the ages of thirteen and fifteen. The school takes students from
five primary schools. This mixing of students is a good opportunity to get new friends. When you start junior-high, you also
start getting grades. For many pupils this makes a big difference . But it`s usually presents no problem , you`ll get used to it .
The school starts at 8.30. The pupils have 6 lessons each 45 minutes. Between each lesson there are breaks for five or ten
minutes, and at 11 o `clock there is a big break for 45 minutes. That is called "midttime ". The students can og home when
school ends at 14.00. We og to school from monday to friday. Every classes at most consist of 30 students.

Skarpengengland Junior High School
is a small school in Vennesla municipality. The Junior-high is in the same building as the
primary school and with all the pupils, there are 350 pupils. We in junior-high, were about 110 pupils. There are not many
teachers, so we had the same teachers all the three years we went there. The schools architecture is very special and
unpractical, because the classrooms are not separated. It got noisy and it was hard to concentrate sometimes. (The key word
was: discipline. We hid ourselves in the toilets, because we weren't allowed to spend the breaks inside.) And because of small
size of the school, the relationship got intimate, everybody became in a way "friends". Skapengland junior-high was a pleasant
school to spend three years of our lives in.

Old people’s home.

When people get to old or sick too take care of themselves or their houses they usually don t

Move in with their relatives. They move in to an old people s home where they are nursed and

fed or to a little apartment where nurses come to help some times a week

There are two old people s homes in Vennesla. These work just like a hotel. One with room

for 20 and the other with room for 60. There are also 150 old people s apartments.

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