“Trends in the Restructuring of German Universities.”

Rosalind Pritchard

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    35 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    What happens when a highly regulated educational system - one featuring academic freedom, a national outlook and an input-oriented state-run bureaucracy - attempts to internationalize and introduce management structures that are outcome-oriented, deregulated, and more efficient? The question is relevant in many countries where universities are trying to get out from under the state, and it is critically important in the formerly Communist systems as well as in countries where Prussian traditions have influenced the university model. In the case of Germany, examined in this article, it has long been admitted that change is needed. There is no shortage of exhortation to achieve it, both within and outside government. Yet the German model is an immensely influential one, both in Europe and the United States. Accordingly, a change in German higher education would represent a significant reconfiguration in the academic world. My purpose in this article is to explore the measures currently being taken to modernize and create a market within German universities, and to evaluate the success of these measures. The following questions are addressed:• How are marketizing trends being manifested in governance and law, management, finance, quality assurance, and human resource management? • What are the obstacles to marketizing trends? • How are these trends influencing the model of the German state in its post-war incarnation?
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)9
    JournalComparative Education Review (USA),
    Volume50
    Issue number1
    Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - 2006

    Bibliographical note

    Reference text: TRENDS
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    Zielvereinbarungen
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    The Fachhochschulen (FHS) (Universities of Applied Science) do not have a Mittelbau and one view is that the MA qualification of a FHS should not be recognised as being of the same standard as that of a university in cases where BA and MA are offered.
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    “When compared with other countries, we note that German junior staff feel they have the least influence in this respect. … Junior staff at German universities feel less free than their colleagues in all the other countries surveyed in determining the focus of their research…. It is the German professors who perceive themselves as having the greatest control in determining their core activities, whereas the junior staff feel the least free.” Jürgen Enders and Ulrich Teichler, “The Academic Profession in Germany,” in The International Academic Profession: Portraits of Fourteen Countries (Princeton, New Jersey: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1996), 465 and 468.
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    The basic salary groups in monthly amounts are (as of August 2004): scale W1 3405.34 Euros (US$ 4068); W2 3890.03 Euros (US$ 4647); W3 4723.61 Euros (US$5643). The previous maximum for a C4 professor from the age of 49 was 5782 Euros (US$ 6939) though of course the W3 the basic salary may be raised by performance-enhanced supplements. Data from “Die ,neue‘ Professorenbesoldung” by Hubert Detmer and Ulrike Preißler, Forschung und Lehre 5 (2005):256-258.
    The ceiling must not normally exceed the difference between the W3 and the B10 scales, which in August 2004 was 5,241.48 Euros (Detmer and Preißler Forschung und Lehre, 5, 2005, page 257).
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    Back in the 1970s, an unsuccessful attempt was made to introduce assistant professors, and some fear that the junior professors will be just as unsuccessful. People likely to be in a difficult position have set up their own website (www.wissenschaftlichernachwuchs.de) to collect public support for their protest against the new legislation.
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    Kritik an der Juniorprofessur, Forschung und Lehre 7 (2000): 344. Editorial: no author’s name given.
    Traditionally, this security of the Beamtentum has been highly valued and has deep roots in history. In 1794, the Prussian Allgemeines Landrecht (Article 73, Part 2 (12)) gave the professors and officials of the universities the right to become civil servants, and payment was according to office and qualifications rather than achievements (W. Löwer, “Notwendigkeit oder Privileg? Berufsbeamtentum für Professoren,” Forschung und Lehre 10 (2000), p. 522 & 555). Article 48 (3) of the Federal Framework Law states that junior professors may be offered an ‘employee status’ (Angestelltenverhältnis) instead of full civil servant status, and even for full professors, civil service status may be time-limited.
    Meek and Goedegebuure, p.12.
    Lenhardt, p. 22.
    As Kuhlen (163) remarks, “there is no will to keep potential academic recruits at the very location where they have demonstrated their brilliance.”
    “Exzellenzinitiative und Pakt für Forschung und Innovation starten.” BMBF Press release 147/2005 of 23rd June 2005.
    Karl Ulrich Mayer, “Yale, Harvard & Co: Mythos oder Modell für Deutschland?” in Glanzlichter der Wissenschaft – Ein Almanach, published by the Deutscher Hochschulverband (Stuttgart: Lucius and Lucius):71-82.
    Dieter Lenzen, “Universitas: Nicht ohne Medizin,” Forschung und Lehre 4 (2002): 189-190.
    As Karl Ulrich Mayer comments: “The state is far from being willing to give up its higher education administrative responsibilities and trusts neither the leadership teams of the HEIs nor the accreditation authorities.” In “Mißtrauen im Reformprozeß, Forschung und Lehre 6 (2002), 299.
    Karl Ulrich Mayer, “ Das Hochschulwesen,” in Das Bildungswesen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Strukturen und Entwicklungen im Überblick, eds Kai S. Cortina, Jürgen Baumert, Achim Leschinsky, Karl Ulrich Mayer, & Luitgard Trommer (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2003): 581-624.
    Jessop, p. 122 and 140.
    Simon Marginson and Gary Rhoades. “Beyond National States and Systems of Higher Education,” Higher Education 43 (2003): 281-309.

    Keywords

    • German Higher Education
    • reform
    • Higher Education Law

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