Academy and Studying in Germany

For many years now research institutes calling themselves “Think Tanks” have been influencing the reform debate in Germany with their business-oriented approach to education. They are guided by the idea of human capital and bearing this in mind they are forever looking for new ways of marketing education – the PISA survey of course has only helped to consolidate this approach.

Both national and international “Think Tanks” are responsible for not only fostering the privatisation of schools and universities, but of the field of education as a whole. It has been above all the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) and the Bertelsmann Foundation that have led the way here. One thing unites them – they both have the same idea about people – people are resources. The aim is to tap these resources – human capital, as it is known much in the same way gas might be tapped from a pipeline. The OECD with its 30 member states defines the concept of human capital as follows – “In the years we spend going through our educational system a certain form of capital is accrued that in the long term can yield good returns, much in the same as other forms of capital do that we are more familiar with, i.e. bank accounts or real estate.”

The OECD’s image of the humanity

In the meantime political decision-makers have started to place great importance on the value of human capital, too. This way of thinking took hold when the first PISA survey was published in the year 2000. It gave a huge boost to reforms in kindergartens, schools and universities that are based on the idea of human capital. The latest PISA survey from 2006 tested 15-year-olds in 57 countries in basic reading, mathematics and science. The German pupils who were tested only managed to achieve the OECD average in reading ability. Not good enough for a country like Germany that is the world champion when it comes to exports.

As politicians are being publicly berated in the media for German educational institutions losing prestige, the demand for some form of political consulting is growing all the time. The state needs to quickly find strategies and ideas, so that schools and universities can become more efficient and more competitive on an international level. Is it the OECD’s aim to produce adaptable and flexible people whose skills can be put to good use in all kinds of working situations? “The wording of the PISA test questions alone is proof enough that the human being is being tested to find out whether he or she is fit for the market,” says Jochen Krautz, education researcher and author of the 2007 published book Ware Bildung. Schule und Universitäten unter dem Diktat der Ökonomie (roughly translated as Education For Sale – Schools and Universities Under the Dictates of the Economy). According to Krautz a network of international foundations, pressure groups and industrial groups are in the process of re-defining education, of de-nationalising state-run education systems and of integrating the profit-making elements of private-sector enterprise. It is a billion-dollar market.

Less state, more business

Feeling uneasy about “society not being structured enough”, Bertelsmann boss, Reinhard Mohn, set up the Bertelsmann Foundation in Gütersloh in 1977. According to political scientist, Martin Thunert, from the University of Heidelberg, it is the most powerful, privately financed “Think Tank” in Germany today. Mohn, who, along with his family, has a capital share of 23 per cent in the Bertelsmann Group, has a vision – a vision that is based on a particular understanding of the society he lives in, “As little state-control as possible.” His image of humanity is based on a declared belief in the spirit of free enterprise and its social responsibilities. Bertelsmann is one of the biggest international media groups generating an annual turnover of 18 billion euros (2007). Bertelsmann owns RTL – the film, TV and radio group, the Gruner + Jahr newspaper group, the publishing house of Random House, Arvato services and systems and the direct media marketing section of DirectGroup.

The Bertelsmann Foundation has a share in the group of 76.9 per cent and profits directly from the financial clout of the company. The “Think Tank” has an annual budget of over 60 million euros at its disposal. With the help of such financial cushioning the foundation is able to fund important educational projects, among them independent schools, networking for innovative educational institutions and self-evaluations of schools, all of which resulted from the PISA Survey. The overall aim is to make the schools more efficient and to reduce the amount of influence the state has on them. In the end the schools and universities are to be run like businesses without any bureaucracy.

The “university unbound”

The CHE – Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung (Centre For Higher Education Development) was specially set up in 1994 with the purpose of applying the methods of business management to universities. The CHE is yet another of the Bertelsmann Foundation’s “Think Tanks” in collaboration with the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (German Rectors’ Conference). Detlef Müller-Böling, head of the CHE from 1994 until 2008, sketched out this shift to a more business-oriented approach on the part of university management in his book Die entfesselte Hochschule (The University Unbound). In the meantime more and more German federal states have followed CHE recommendations, granting the universities more autonomy and fuelling keener competition among them.

The state of North-Rhine Westphalia has made a great deal of headway in this respect. At the beginning of 2007 the Hochschulfreiheitsgesetz (law for greater autonomy for higher education institutions) came into force there. Minister for Science and Research, Andreas Pinkwart (of the FDP party), maintains that North-Rhine Westphalia is the only state in Germany that has made its universities and universities of applied sciences “independent”. “They are no longer subject to state-controlled managerial authority and a new set of university statutes grants them far-reaching powers and responsibility in matters of finance, personnel and organisation.” Furthermore the universities now have the opportunity to acquire a business interest in a company or even set up their own businesses. They are indeed “unbound”.