Police training institution
Politihøgskolen
The Norwegian police’s own education institution, whose stated mission joins teaching, research and dissemination rather than teaching alone.
At a glance
- Official name
- Politihøgskolen
- Commonly rendered in English as
- Norwegian Police University College — a rendering in common use, not necessarily the institution’s own name.
- System
- Norway
- Who runs it
- The Norwegian police, which the institution describes itself as belonging to — “politiets utdanningsinstitusjon”. Politiet has a page of its own.
- Does it recruit officers?
- Not a recruiting authority
This institution trains. It does not decide who joins a police service. Applications to join are made to the service, not to the school.
- Does it award degrees?
- Not established
The sources read do not state whether this institution awards academic qualifications in its own right. Naming a bachelor or master programme is not the same as stating a degree-awarding status, so nothing is claimed here.
- Official website
- https://www.politihogskolen.no/ — confirmed against the institution’s own pages on 17 September 2026.
- Facts last checked against sources
- 17 September 2026
What it is
Politihøgskolen describes itself as the police’s education institution and states a societal mission of securing legal certainty, safety, law and order through education, research and dissemination — three functions named together, so teaching is one of three rather than the whole. It dates its own beginning to 1920, when the first twenty-four students enrolled at Statens politiskole. The institution publishes far more continuing and post-qualification students than bachelor students, which inverts the public picture of a police academy: the largest part of its teaching is for people who are already officers.
What kind of training it provides
Taken from the institution’s own account of what it does. A body can carry out several of these, and most do.
- Initial training — teaching that takes a person into the service
- In-service training — teaching for people already serving
- Academic education — teaching towards an academic qualification
- Research — published by the institution as one of its own functions
Who decides admission
Admission to the bachelor politiutdanning runs on an annual cycle with published requirements and deadlines; the requirements are the institution’s, not an employer’s.
Where to go next
- Does police training lead to a degree? — the comparative question across systems, which this page deliberately does not answer on its own.
- Official police recruitment destinations — where each system publishes its own joining information. That is where an application goes, not here.
- Police organisations — the named forces themselves, which are separate bodies from the institutions that train them.
Sources
Politihøgskolen · Government publication · link verified 2026-09-17
SCOPE: Politihøgskolen only. The institution's own 'about us' page in Norwegian, read directly. Supports its self-description as 'politiets utdanningsinstitusjon' — the police's education institution — and its stated societal mission of securing legal certainty, safety, law and order through education, research and dissemination. The page publishes student numbers by category; those are NOT published here, because an intake figure decays without notice. Supports that the first 24 students began at Statens politiskole in 1920.
Opptakskrav — Bachelor politiutdanning
Politihøgskolen (Norwegian Police University College) · Government publication · link verified 2026-09-06
SCOPE: admission to the Bachelor politiutdanning at Politihøgskolen. Reached after the Wave 25 path (phs.no) 301-redirected to politihogskolen.no and then 404ed; this is the current location. Supports Norwegian citizenship, generell studiekompetanse, a minimum grade 3 in written Norwegian hovedmål, førerkort klasse B, plettfri vandel documented by politiattest, and a legeerklæring — each attached to a deadline in the annual admission cycle (1 March for the first three, 1 August of the PRECEDING year for the licence, 20 March for documentation). CYCLE-ANCHORED rather than one-off campaign-specific: the dates recur annually. The page states NO age requirement, and none is claimed. Establishes nothing about other routes into Norwegian policing.