Academy and Studying in Germany

Goethe.de: Mr Nida-Rümelin, the Bologna Process stands for a far-reaching reconstruction of the university, one such as has never been undertaken before. Judged by its goals, has the enormous effort been worth it?

Nida-Rümelin: If the goals had been achieved, one could perhaps say "Yes". But up to now not a single one of its goal has been achieved.

What do you have in mind?

Take the mobility of students: the reforms meant to facilitate this, but they have demonstrably decreased it. And for easily comprehensible reasons. Modular courses of study and the uniform evaluative standard of ECTS points [European Credit Transfer System Points, editor’s note] were supposed to make credits accepted at various universities comparable all over Europe (a "uniform European higher education area"). In practice, however, the course modules at one university are in most cases anything but compatible with those at another university, especially universities in other countries.

Understandably, modules are tailored to the specific course of study at a specific university. Individual countries also assess ECTS points by different standards. This has much to do with historically different scholarly cultures. At least in the case of bachelor degree students, it must be said quite plainly that Bologna hasn’t facilitated their mobility but rather considerably restricted it. It could be different for master’s degree or PhD degree students. It is still too soon to say.

But when one realises that most bachelor degree students will be let loose in the working world with this degree as their professional qualification, it is certainly rather dubious.

Yes. The degree is conceived for those who will continue with their studies after the BA; the others, and that is presumably the majority, are left with the short end of the stick.

Orientation on American degrees was a mistake

Not only the engineering diploma but also the former German Magister degree in the humanities enjoyed a very good international reputation. And it was surely a mistake to orient the Bologna reforms on the terminology of American degrees instead of developing an independent European profile. Unlike the German diploma and Magister, the German bachelor degree probably won’t be recognised at most American universities as equal to the American degrees.

So we must look upon two quite basic goals of the Bologna Process, improved mobility and international competitiveness, as having already foundered?

At the present time, that is what must be said! Nor does it look better with respect to achieving the other goals. For instance, the reforms are expressly intended to ensure that more young people go to universities and, at the same time, that fewer students leave without having finished a degree. This goal too has up to now not been achieved (at any rate, on the whole; the results in various specific subjects are very different). In addition, the tendency to turn university courses into school instruction has led to a clear extension of the amount of time students have to spend at lectures. Hardly any time remains for studying by oneself. At least in the humanities this is, to put it cautiously, regrettable. At the same time, the supervision duties of lecturers and professors have increased enormously.

Even if one is reluctant to admit it officially, the qualifying examinations that have been universally introduced serve, against this background, the de facto purpose of limiting the number of students so that the considerably increased demands on supervision can be covered by essentially the same number of staff. Massive amounts of money would have to be put into the system in order to change this. The few full-time "lecturers" or "teaching staff for special instruction", who have been appointed with the help of student tuition money, cannot alone cover the extra work.

The unity of research and teaching split

That can’t be denied. In future, research will probably increasingly be done by "research professors" (with whom students will have only little contact), while the other professors concern themselves mainly with the teaching, without time for their own research. That, and now I speak as an admirer of the Humboldtian system, contradicts the ideal of the unity of research and teaching and undoubtedly means a loss of quality.

How do you see the future of the Bologna Process? The clock can’t be turned back. So what now?

I’m not so naïve as to believe we could begin again from the beginning. But a reform of the reform seems to me to be inevitable. If we simply continue to go on as we are now, merely because we have already gone so far, the Bologna Process as a whole, measured by its own goals, will fail. In future we ought to think more about the strengths of the European university tradition instead of orienting ourselves on the chimera of an American model that doesn’t actually exist in reality. At American universities, the BA courses are directed to general education, offer many electives and are meant to prepare students for their real university studies; they have rather the function that the sixth form has at a German secondary school.