Germany abandons fee reform

GERMAN education ministers have unveiled sweeping plans to reform higher education in order to make the system more cost-effective and competitive internationally.

Under their proposals, students would have to complete their degrees in nine semesters and universities would be given greater powers to select the best students. Academics would be subject to performance-related pay and universities would be given more power to control their own budgets.

But the most controversial reform on the agenda in recent years, the introduction of student fees, will not be included in the bill which education minister Jurgen Ruttgers will present to the Bundestag next year.

"We have to reform higher education with, not against, the students," Hans Zehetmair, education minister for Bavaria, told a press conference, indicating that politicians believe a reform might stumble over fees. Discussions over reform have reached fever pitch in the past few months as politicians, policymakers, academics and students have jostled to air their views ahead of a reform bill.

Now that these principles for reform have been agreed by Dr Ruttgers and education ministers of the Lander (states) controlled by his ruling coalition, the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union, the government is a stage closer to achieving its aim to reform higher education in this legislative period.

German higher education suffers from student overcrowding and under-funding, factors which have contributed to a 25 per cent drop-out rate and students taking an average seven years or more to complete a first degree.

The universities and the Fachhochschulen, their technical-oriented counterparts, are strangled by tight bureaucratic controls; professors enjoy tenure and are only obliged to teach a minimum of eight hours a week. Additionally, the German system suffers from being incompatible with international systems, making it unattractive to foreign students and academics, and disadvantaging its graduates in the international jobs market.

The conservatives' reform proposals are aimed at solving these problems. The main points include: * Entrance requirements: in place of the current centralised admissions procedures, universities would be able to select students for many courses by entrance exams, interviews and evaluation of secondary school matriculation grades.

* Intermediate exams: study momentum would be maintained by intermediate exams to be held before the fourth semester. Anyone who had not passed such exams by the sixth semester would be forced to abandon their studies.

* Degree qualifications: universities would have the chance of offering Anglo-Saxon-style bachelor and masters degrees alongside German qualifications.

* Fachhochschulen: the status of the qualifications they offer would be enhanced.

* Performance related pay: academics' salaries would be attached to their achievements in teaching and research. This would be tested through regular quality assessment programmes.

* Management: universities would have more powers to control their own budgets and select their academic staff and students.

Dr Ruttgers said universities, professors and students will be included in preparations for the new framework higher education law which he will submit to parliament in the course of next year.