Norway
Norway formally the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula. The capital and largest city in Norway is Oslo and a population over 05 million. The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden. It is bordered by Finland and Russia to the northeast and the Skagerrak strait to the south. Norway has an extensive coastline facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States. Norway is a founding member of the United Nations, NATO, the European Free Trade Association, the Council of Europe, the Antarctic Treaty, and the Nordic Council; a member of the European Economic Area, the WTO, and the OECD and a part of the Schengen Area. The Norwegian state has large ownership positions in key industrial sectors, having extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, and fresh water.
The Norwegian welfare state is built upon a social democratic model, in which general taxes on income, consumption and fortune are spent on public services that are more or less free for all. The public healthcare system is strong in Norway, and most hospitals are funded and owned by the state. All Norwegian citizens with a personal identification number are eligible for a general practitioner, which they choose from a public list. There are no charges for children under the age of 16. The same applies for pregnant and/or nursing women.
As part of the Norwegian welfare system, all public schools in Norway are free. Children in Norway start school the year they turn 6 years old, and finish the year they turn 19. In Norway, English education begins in the first year of primary school when children are six years old and continues throughout their schooling. The country boasts a high level of English proficiency, due in part to the quality of its teaching. In the first year of primary school, students spend most of their time playing educational games and learning social structures, the alphabet, basic addition and subtraction, and basic English skills. In grades 2–7, they are introduced to mathematics, English, science, religion (focusing not only on Christianity but also on all other religions, their purpose, and their history), aesthetics, and music, complemented by geography, history, and social studies in the fifth grade.
