Avoiding tracking? Vocational students who take the supplementary programme for university admission

In Norway, upper secondary education was fundamentally transformed with the reform of 1994, with a division into three-year academic programmes and vocational programmes (VET) consisting of two years at school followed by two years of apprenticeship. Moreover, an opportunity for VET students to change from vocational to academic after two years was introduced, called the supplementary programme for university admission. This article discusses the policy arguments used for implementing this programme, and how these arguments developed over time. In addition, the article uses statistics for the period 1994–2019 to display how the programme is used, and by whom. Thus, the article combines a document analysis with statistical analyses. We used a theoretical framework building on institutional change as our frame of reference for interpreting potential policy changes over time. The supplementary programme serves several functions, and these functions have evolved over time. The proportion using the programme grew during the first decade but has been stable at about one in five students since 2008. The policy arguments have primarily been individual, and institutional drift can be observed, as the programme took on purposes other than those originally intended. The programme also contributes to giving students from less-advantaged socio-economic background access to higher education.