This year is the third time the municipality has invited Guttas Campus in Grøtavær. The target group is boys in the 9th grade who are at risk of not finishing school.
Everyone benefits from the offer, but it is especially boys who find school challenging, and who want to strengthen themselves academically and socially before they start at VGS, who are in the target group, says principal Martin Berg at Stangnes secondary school who is also the camp manager.
He gets support from the mayor and project manager Eirik Djønne, who says that there are only seven applicants for a total of 12 places. They are clear that the offer works.
– No one from Harstad who has participated in Guttas Campus has dropped out of upper secondary school, says Djønne.
Got a six on the test
The dropout rate in the upper secondary school in Harstad is 29 per cent, which is six percentage points higher than the national average.
– Boys are overrepresented, and in northern Norway the numbers are higher than in the rest of the country, says mayor Kari-Anne Opsal. She cheers for the project and hopes that pupils and parents will take the chance.
All boys would benefit from the offer, says Martin Berg.
– The goal is to find the boys’ power, work with ways of thinking and learn basic skills. The Norwegian school is not suitable for everyone, he says.
The headmaster says that especially those with a grade point average of around 3 should apply.
– We know that this works. The boys are better equipped for life.
– Easy to get employees
Guttas Campus starts on 10 June and lasts until 21 June at the camp school in Grøtavær. It’s easy to get employees to join.
– What about the girls? Should they get this offer?
– It’s not on the stairs, but elsewhere in the country there are schemes for both sexes. Then Guttas Campus takes over the school for a few weeks, and the students live at home, says Djønne.
Sunday is the deadline for applications to join this year’s gathering.
The dangers of apostasy
Gro Hilde Ramsdal, associate professor at the Arctic University of Norway, has researched the effect of Guttas Campus. In 2022, she told iHarstad that 57 per cent of pupils in Troms will complete upper secondary school in the normal time. This means that the dropout rate is high, especially among boys.
If you do not complete upper secondary school, it gives you:
- greater risk of unemployment
- greater risk of committing a crime
- greater risk of abusing drugs
- greater risk of receiving social security benefits
- greater risk of becoming permanently disabled
- a significant wage loss seen from a life-course perspective, compared to those students who complete
NRK has made a documentary film about Guttas Campus, which you can watch here: Boys on the brink.