IMDi’s efforts toward education and employment for adult immigrants

IMDi’s role includes cooperation with a variety of sectoral authorities, including the Directorate of Labour and Welfare, the Directorate for Higher Education and Competence, trade and labour unions, as well as the municipalities and county authorities.

The training schemes aim to ensure that adult refugees and immigrants secure a s attachment to the labour market and become financially independent. IMDi is responsible for following up training schemes under the Norwegian Integration Act.

IMDi is responsible for following up is the introduction programme. This is a municipal educational programme that aims to prepare refugees for participation in the labour market and society through Norwegian language training, social studies, and work related measures. All refugees between the ages of 18 and 55 settled by an agreement between IMDi and a municipality have a right to participate in the introduction programme. The same applies to family members who arrive through family immigration with refugees in the before mentioned group. The aim of the programme is to find employment or pursue further education.

IMDi is responsible for knowledge and quality development of the introduction programme and has created online guides for municipalities and other partners. The focus is on best practices. In addition, IMDi implements competence enhancing initiatives for employees in the municipality and county authorities that assist immigrants to pursue education or find a job.

IMDi is responsible for developing the field of training and skills. As part of this work, IMDi administers several grant schemes. One of the grant schemes, Job Opportunity (Jobbsjansen), aims to increase employment among stay-at-home immigrant women.

The Integration grant scheme towards municipal integration initiatives is intended to improve the quality and results of the municipalities’ work towards the target group. The grant scheme is used to encourage initiatives and methods that is expected to have transferability. IMDi also have a grant scheme towards programmes for adapted vocational education and training. This is intended to stimulate the county authorities to offer services for immigrants who do not have sufficient Norwegian language skills to follow ordinary training.