Bilingual degrees on offer

Hamburg. GERMAN universities are to establish bilingual degree courses in a bid to make their higher education system more attractive to foreign students.

The education ministry will invest DM30 million (Pounds 12.5 million) in the project until the year 2000 and the first 12 bilingual degrees will be launched in the 1997 summer semester. Half of the students accepted on to the courses will be foreign students, the other half Germans.

The first bilingual degrees are likely to be in economics, engineering, information technology and science subjects. English will be the most common second language, but French and Spanish will also be offered.

Universities situated near Germany's borders could establish courses in their neighbouring country's language alongside German. This could include Danish, Polish, Czech and Dutch.

Education minister Jurgen Ruttgers warned that Germany is "bound to suffer scientific, economic and cultural disadvantages" if it cannot make its higher education system more competitive internationally.

He said only 2.3 per cent of the world's students who study outside their home countries chose German universities or their technical equivalent, the Fachhochschulen. According to surveys, the students particularly dislike the lack of career orientation and universities' lack of care for students as consumers.

Dr Ruttgers particularly regrets the lack of interest among students from the fast-developing Asian countries. Twenty years ago nearly half of Indonesian students studying abroad came to Germany, today it was only around 18 per cent.

The German Academic Exchange Service last year pumped some Pounds 28 million - 20 per cent of its resources - into establishing student exchange schemes with the Tiger countries. Politicians are reacting to its criticism that students are put off by bureaucracy over entry visas and recognition of their qualifications as well as long study periods and poor pastoral care.

The government and the federal states this month agreed a joint declaration of measures to lift these barriers. They include loosening visa regulations for applicants, offering internationally recognised degrees, and placing a higher value on foreign qualifications.