Welcome!

We focus on fostering a strong community. With us, you become part of a close-knit group in the course you choose. At the same time, you also become an important part of a positive school environment – across all courses.

We are a school with many students spread across various and exciting courses. This means we have students and teachers with different interests and expertise. The school’s facilities reflect this: we have everything from a car workshop to a music studio. Everything is in place for you to develop in many different areas – both activities you know, don’t know, or haven’t tried before!

You will meet some people who are quite like you, but also some who are very different – in terms of interests, skills, beliefs, and backgrounds.

Being part of such a diverse community throughout a school year is extremely valuable in many ways. You will notice this!

“The strong community” is something the school works purposefully on. We aim to cultivate a good school environment within each course, but also across courses. In this work, we focus on shared experiences. Good shared experiences create cohesion and well-being – we have a lot of experience with this!

It means a lot to us that every individual at the school feels seen, heard, and valued.

You will find that the school’s staff are involved both academically and socially, and we have routines for follow-up. Additionally, the school offers guidance for further studies/career.

We have been running the school for over 100 years and have housed over 13,000 students. We hope you choose to become part of our large, traditional school family!

Our students:

• Say they enjoy being here. Primarily because of the people and the program, but also because of the good standard of the dormitory and the food. Our kitchen serves nutritious, tasty, and popular food.
• Are seen by adults who care about young people.
• Are encouraged to care.
• Have fantastic experiences on our study trips.
• Take responsibility to ensure others also have a good time.
• Build relationships and make friends for life.
• Discover new sides of themselves.
• Receive good help with career and study choices.
• Build a positive environment together with people who are different from themselves.
• Gain increased knowledge about things they are interested in.
• Develop knowledge and skills in the subjects they are interested in.
• Have fun.

To you who are considering becoming a student with us:

• Experience the qualities that a broad school offers, with a variety of interests, activities, facilities, and expertise. Get to know students from all over the country and from abroad.
• Our focus on shared experiences, both within and across courses, contributes to cohesion and well-being.
• We have well-established school trips both domestically and abroad. There are both joint trips with the whole school and course-specific trips. Additionally, you can choose a study trip from four options.

FHS Sørlandet is a Christian school. We emphasize inclusion, engagement, knowledge, and experiences.

The staff go to great lengths to give you perhaps your best school year. A year that gives you confidence in yourself and your talents. A year that pushes boundaries. A year that teaches you to appreciate yourself and others. Although a year at a folk high school consists mostly of everyday life, it’s just that everyday life here is so different!

Folkehøgskolen Sørlandet is idyllically situated in rural surroundings in Birkenes municipality. The capital of Southern Norway, Kristiansand, is about 30 kilometers away. It is just over 10 kilometers to the coastal gem Lillesand.

Birkeland is a well-developed village, and the school is located in the center.

In the immediate vicinity, you will find grocery stores, a post office, fast food outlets, a pharmacy, a bakery, a library, a dentist, hairdressers, sports facilities, and a health station.

If you want a wider selection for shopping, it is not far to Sørlandssenteret (about 200 stores). It is located right next to the zoo and IKEA, and it takes about 20 minutes by car.

Kristiansand Airport Kjevik is 20 kilometers away. The E-18 highway between Kristiansand and Grimstad ensures smooth traffic flow in the region (from the exit at E-18, it takes 10 minutes to get to the school).

A normal school week consists of course subjects, common subjects, and seminars.

In practice, this means that you naturally have the most hours in your chosen course. Typically, the number of course hours is 14 hours per week. All of Monday, Thursday, and Friday are dedicated to time with just your course. In addition to course hours, we also have common subjects.

Not all weeks are normal. We have focus weeks. These can be:

• Trips with your course or the school
• Elective subject weeks
• Course weeks

This years schedule:

Common subjects can vary from year to year. This year’s common subjects are:

• Activity subjects
• Life skills
• Principal’s hour
• Sing-along
• Room cleaning
• Christian faith
• Trip information
• Dormitory group

Saturday Seminar

During the seminars, the entire student body is gathered. These are some different days filled with content that is not provided in the regular teaching. We work on bringing in exciting guests and programs that have something important to convey, as well as engaging and active setups.

Typical topics that may be covered:

• Training seminars
• Current social issues
• Environment and sustainability
• Substance abuse issues
• Mental health
• Cultural topics
• Film
• Social media
• Tourism

The day is by no means over even though the schedule is finished.

You have many options for the afternoons and evenings. Very often, various activities are organized that you can choose from. Typically, these activities can be:

• Football
• Drawing
• Hiking
• Volleyball
• Board games
• “Crow Choir”
• Handicrafts
• Tuesday meeting

Of course, you can also start activities yourself. For example, you can:

• Borrow the pool with some friends
• Work out in the gym
• Watch a movie in Hall A
• Hang out in the common room
• Cook with some friends in one of the dorm kitchens
• Go for a jog on one of the many trails
• Play music together in the music room
• Challenge a friend in billiards or table tennis

Many of the activities outside the schedule are things we do together with the whole school. Some of the things we do together are:

• Archipelago trips
• Fundraising for aid projects
• Creating and setting up a fairy tale forest for first graders in the village
• Christmas workshop
• Night hike
• Exciting excursions in the local area

Admission at FHS Sørlandet

Application procedures at the school

• The earlier you apply, the greater the chance you have of getting a spot.
• Applications can be made via our website and at www.folkehogskole.no.
• Applications for the 2025/26 school year can be submitted from October 1, 2024. However, you can, in principle, apply whenever you want, and applications for a school year are registered continuously at the school’s central office.
• We have no deadline for when you must apply.
• Admissions start on November 15 and continue as long as we have available spots in the courses (this means we start sending out offers for school places on November 15, but it is also fine to have submitted the application before admissions begin).

Admission criteria:

• Applicants must be 18 years old during the calendar year the school year starts. For 2025/26, this means 18 years old by December 31, 2025.
• Foreign applicants must either:
  • have good communication skills in english.
  • have a contact person residing in Norway.
• Applicants with special needs for accommodation must specify this in the application. Only a limited number of spots are available in each course for students with special needs.
• School places are mainly offered based on the order in which applications are received, but the school reserves the right to prioritise applicants based on gender and motivation.
• Applicants must be motivated to participate in the school’s learning program.
• Applicants who are much older than the main group may be deprioritised.

What happens after I apply?

When you apply, you will receive a confirmation that we have received your application. This confirmation will be sent via SMS and email.

Applications will be processed continuously, but we will not be able to provide any responses before November 15. This is a common start date for all folk high schools.

If you apply after November 15, applications will be processed continuously.

What happens if I receive an offer?

If you receive an offer from us, you can expect that we are contacting you. If we cannot reach you by phone, we will send you an SMS. The offer will be sent digitally by email and physically by post. You will have 10 days to respond to the offer.

Please note that applicants who accept a school place have a 14-day right of withdrawal according to the Right of Withdrawal Act.

Here’s the translation:

FHS Sørlandet was founded as Sørlandets Kristelege Ungdomsskule in 1912 by “mission organizations in Agder,” as it was called. Many groups and associations in both Agder counties were engaged and took responsibility for getting the school in Birkeland started and had a support base that backed the operation with prayer, care, and financial resources in the decades that followed.

Over the course of the more than 100 years that have passed since then, the assembly and organizational landscape in Norway has changed significantly, including within Christian organizations. Our current owners are the following:

• Agder region of Normisjon (60%)
• Indremisjonsforbundet Sør (30%)
• Agder district of Norways YWCA/YMCA (10%)

Here are two pages with information regarding VISA and Folk high schools:

• The folk high schools movements info page about general prices and visas.

• The Norwegian Foreign Ministries (UDI)s study permit portal.