Norway – Research services – Qualification - Evaluation of national professional guidelines for worrying school absences.

National professional guidelines are an important tool in the health and welfare sector. Udir is hereby announcing an evaluation assignment to obtain knowledge on the implementation and effects of the national professional guidelines for worrying school absences, cf. part 3 of the Assignment Letter 2024-018, addition no. 14. This is the first national professional guideline developed for the education sector in Norway, and it also targets other services in the education and welfare sector as a secondary target group. The objective of the evaluation is to obtain knowledge on how the national professional guidelines for worrying school absences function as a means of practice. The evaluation shall highlight the situation before and after implementation, and examine how the guideline is adopted and experienced by both the main and secondary target group. Furthermore, the evaluation should assess how and to what degree the guideline contributes to changes in the work of preventing and following up school absences, including the interaction between services, and whether these changes help students with nasating or worrying absences get faster and better help and follow-up. The evaluation shall also uncover any unintended consequences, both positive and negative. The assignment shall be carried out over a four year period (March 2026 - March 2030) and shall provide knowledge on how the guidelines function in practice in this period. The total cost limit for the evaluation is NOK 5 million excluding VAT. It is not possible to add self-financing as a part of the tender/offered total price in the competition. A comprehensive description of the delivery is given in points 4 and 5.