Accounts for private kindergartens

According to the Day Care Institutions Act of 1995, a kindergarten is defined as an approved educational establishment organized for children below the age of compulsory education. The Ministry of Education and Research determines regulations and guidelines for kindergartens, while municipalities issue the approvals.

A family day-care center is a kindergarten that organizes its activities in a private home, based on the premise that a kindergarten teacher is employed as an educational supervisor. The kindergarten teacher should either be attached to a normal kindergarten or the municipal administration. The regulation on family day-care centers states that at least half of the children in a family day-care institution group must be other than the home's own children.

Mixed kindergartens are a mix of ordinary kindergartens and family day-care centers.

Operating income includes parental payments, sale/hiring out place, sale of equipment, state subsidy, municipal subsidy, other municipal subsidy, and other incomes.

Operating expenses include salary, social charges, equipment, maintenance and other operation expenses.

Operating profit is operating income less operating expences.

Net profit is operating profit adjusted with financial items and tax.

Type of owner is a description of the owner of the kindergarten and is a predefined list on the questionnaire.

Positive net profit can be allocated in two different ways:

1. Retained as a part of the equity or to strengthen the kindergarten’s liquidity or to finance acquisitions for the kindergarten later.
2. Pay the positive net profit as dividend payments to kindergarten owner or transfer as an intra-group contribution.

Dividend is a payment of the positive net profit to the kindergarten's owner.

Paid group contribution is the positive net profit transmission to the group company. Group companies are defined as companies in a relationship with each other as described in Companies Act § 1-3.

Public kindergartens: Kindergartens owned by the municipal, county municipal or state authorities.

Private kindergartens: Privately owned kindergartens, including privately owned kindergartens receiving subsidies from the municipality.

Non-municipal kindergartens: County municipal, state or privately-owned kindergartens.

Part-time attendance in kindergartens: Children with agreed attendance hours within the categories of 0-8 hours, 9-16 hours, 17-24 hours or 25-32 hours per week.

Full-time attendance in kindergartens: Children with agreed attendance hours of 41 hours or more per week.

The Standard Industrial Classification (SN2002) used in Statistics Norway is based on the EU´s NACE-standard.

Name: Accounts for private kindergartens
Topic: Education

Division for Education and Culture Statistics

Counties.

Frequency: Annual

Timeliness: The statistics are usually published in November/December.

Not relevant

Primary data and information on sample units are stored temporarily in the programming language SAS, and stored permanently as text-files.

The account statistics for private kindergartens presents detailed information about the activities in this sector on the basis of financial information. The statistics provides important and necessary knowledge about the subsidies transferred to kindergartens from the government and municipalities, and information about how these resources are used.

The statistics were first published in 1992. In 2003 (accounting year 2002) a new questionnaire, Q 0257, was used. The present questionnaire allows Statistics Norway to publish more detailed statistics. Starting in 2008 a new web solution called BASIL (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training) was used for the data collection.

Users include public sector agencies, with Ministry of Education and Research and The Norwegian Directorate of Education and Training as the main user, private organisations, individuals, international organisations and media.

No external users have access to the statistics and analyses before they are published and accessible simultaneously for all users on ssb.no at 8 am. Prior to this, a minimum of three months' advance notice is given in the Statistics Release Calendar. This is one of Statistics Norway’s key principles for ensuring that all users are treated equally.

The account statistics for private kindergartens are related to other statistics in Statistics Norway, such as Children in kindergartens, Households payments in kindergartens, Employees in kindergartens and schools, as well as KOSTRA and Local governments accounts.

The information is collected by The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. Statistics Norway uses the reports to produce official statistics under the authority of the Statistics Act of 21 June 2019 No. 32 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway § 10.

Not relevant

The statistics include all privately owned kindergartens (industry code 88.911) which has been in operation throughout the financial year. Furthermore, the statistics comprise data from privately-owned ordinary kindergartens, family day-care centers and the mixed ordinary kindergartens and family day-care centers.

The statistics are based on a questionnaire from the BASIL database (BArnehage-Statistikk-InnrapporteringsLøsning). The questionnaire is sent to all privately-owned kindergartens. The Register of Establishments and Enterprises at Statistics Norway is used to obtain necessary information about the population.

The statistics include the whole population of private kindergartens that has been in operation throughout the whole financial year.

The web solution presently in use for the data collection is called BASIL (BArnehage-Statistikk-InnrapporteringsLøsning) and is found on the website of The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. Username and password is sent out within three months after the end of the statistical year, with a response deadline of four weeks.

Revisions and corrections are carried out on the information obtained from the sample population and the structural survey.

Not relevant

The figures are neither published at institutional nor municipal level.

The numbers of establishments included in the statistics vary from year to year. These statistics show income and costs in private kindergartens, and do not give information about numbers of private kindergartens.

The calculation of costs is modified in 2021. From 2015 onwards, children 0-2 years old are weighted by 2. Children 3-6 years old are not weighted.

Returned questionnaires are registered into a database. The registration programme contains automatical controls, and questionnaires which fail to pass the controls are checked individually. Nevertheless, the results of a statistical survey may contain collection and processing errors.

The questionnaire is sent out to all none-municipal kindergartens in Norway. The response rate is not 100 per cent, but normally over 90 per cent. The statistics is therefore representative.

Not relevant