Aksel Hagen is a Norwegian politician and member of the Storting, representing the Socialist Left Party

Socialist Left Party (Norway)

The Socialist Left Party or SV, is a Norwegian left-wing political party. At one point one of the smallest parties in Parliament, it became the fourth-largest political party in Norway for the first time in the 2001 parliamentary election, and has been so ever since...

 (SV) in the county of Oppland

Oppland

is a county in Norway, bordering Sør-Trøndelag, Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Akershus, Oslo and Hedmark. The county administration is in Lillehammer. Oppland is, together with Hedmark, one of the only two landlocked counties of Norway....

. He was elected to parliament following the 2009 parliamentary election

Norwegian parliamentary election, 2009

The 2009 parliamentary election was held in Norway on 14 September 2009. Elections in Norway are held on a Monday in September, usually the second or third Monday, as determined by the king. Early voting was possible between 10 August and 11 September 2009, while some municipalities held open...

 by winning Oppland's leveling seat

Leveling seat

Leveling seats are a mechanism employed in Norwegian elections to the national legislature, the Storting, and in Swedish elections to national and regional assemblies, to ensure proportional representation both by county and political party...

. He sits on the Standing Committee on Education, Research and Church Affairs

Standing Committee on Education, Research and Church Affairs

The Standing Committee on Education and Church Affairs is a standing committee of the Parliament of Norway. It is responsible for policies relating to education, research and church affairs. It corresponds to the Ministry of Education and Research and the church affairs section of the Ministry of...

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Hagen has a doctoral degree from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Norwegian University of Life Sciences

The Norwegian University of Life Sciences is a public university located in Ås, Norway.It is located at Ås in Akershus, near Oslo, and has around 3800 students...

. He was a member of the Lillehammer

Lillehammer

is a town and municipality in Oppland county, Norway, globally known for hosting the 1994 Winter Olympics. It is part of the traditional region of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. As of May 2011, the population of the town of Lillehammer was...

 municipality council between 1991 and 2003, deputy county mayor of Oppland from 2003 to 2007, and a member of the Oppland county council from 2007 until his election to parliament. Hagen was deputy leader of SV's local Oppland chapter between 1998 and 2000, before become the chapter's leader between 2000 and 2004.

Hagen is cohabitant

Cohabitation

Cohabitation usually refers to an arrangement whereby two people decide to live together on a long-term or permanent basis in an emotionally and/or sexually intimate relationship. The term is most frequently applied to couples who are not married...

 with Turid Thomassen

Turid Thomassen

Turid Thomassen is a Norwegian politician who since 2010 has been the party leader of the Norwegian left-wing party Red following Torstein Dahle....

, a politician of Red

Red (Norway)

The Red Party is a Norwegian far-left political party and the leading party to the left of the Socialist Left and the Labour Party in Norway. Since 2007 the party has sought a seat in Parliament; the only counties in which they have a realistic chance of earning a seat are Oslo and Hordaland...

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During his successful campaign, Hagen identified narrowing the gap between rich and poor as his most important issue. In parliament, Hagen is SV's spokesperson on educational affairs, and supports longer school hours and the abolition of homework

Homework

Homework, or homework assignment, refers to tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed outside of class. Common homework assignments may include a quantity or period of reading to be performed, writing or typing to be completed, problems to be solved, a school project to be built...

at the elementary school level (1st-7th grade).