Norway’s crown couple has decided to transfer their two children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and her younger brother, Prince Sverre Magnus, from the local public school they’ve been attending near their royal estate in suburban Asker to private schools in Bærum and Oslo. One of the main reasons, they stated to news bureau NTB on Tuesday, was a need for their daughter, who’s due to become Norway’s monarch one day, to grow up proficient in English.
“For Princess Ingrid Alexandra, her role means that it’s important to have fundamental competence in thinking and speaking in English,” Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit said in a joint statement to NTB delivered through palace communications chief Marianne Hagen.
The royal couple stressed that they are “grateful” for the “fine years our children have had at Jansløkka School in Asker.” At the end of the summer holidays, though, the 10-year-old princess will be enrolled at the private Oslo International School at Bekkestua in Bærum, while Prince Sverre Magnus, age 8, will begin at the Montessori School in Oslo.
Ingrid Alexandra will be entering the fifth grade at the private Oslo International School , where classes are conducted in English but follow a Norwegian teaching plan and, later, an international curriculum.
Asked whether Norwegian public schools are no longer good enough for the heir to Norway’s throne, Hagen told state broadcaster NRK that the crown couple “is now doing what they as parents believe is best for the their children.”
Both Crown Prince Haakon and his older sister, Princess Martha Louise, attended the public Smestad School in Oslo, while their father and his father before him had a mix of schooling and private tutors. The late King Olav V was mostly tutored at home in the Royal Palace, as was common in royal circles in the early 1900s.
newsinenglish.no/Nina Berglund
