The education crisis is often cited as the root cause of
Germany's troubles as the country struggles to
streamline
its social welfare state, infuse flexibility in ossified
institutions and encourage personal initiative to cope
with
competitive challenges raised by global markets and the
communications revolution.
"Germany is making a profound mistake because we are
shortchanging our own future with an academic system
that is totally unadapted to the 21st century," said
Hans
Weiler, Europa University's rector in the eastern border
town of Frankfurt an der Oder.
"It is perhaps the worst manifestation that shows the
damaging effects of thinking the state should take care
of
everything."
While the crisis worsens, the federal and state
governments are bickering over who is responsible.
During a debate in Parliament on Wednesday, Chancellor Helmut Kohl disavowed any blame. He said that the lack of university financing was the fault of the nation's 16 state governments, a majority of which are controlled by the opposition Social Democrats.
"Many of the students' complaints are justified and
deserve our sympathy and support," Mr. Kohl said. "The
states are responsible for education, not the federal
government."
But the states say they are too strapped for cash to
live
up to their constitutional responsibility for education
and
insist that the federal government must come to the
rescue. Like other crises brewing over taxes and
pensions, the gridlock has spawned growing
disenchantment among many Germans toward their
political leadership.
German colleges and universities offer free tuition to all opulation, which has nearly tripled in 20 years to almost 2 million.
There are few restrictions on length of study, so many students linger at universities well past the age of 30. As governments have tried to rein in education costs, the proliferating number of students has depressed academic standards and caused such severe disparities that in some places students outnumber professors by 600 to one. Federal and state governments, which share the costs, say the only alternative is to start charging student The specter of having to pay for their education was cited by many students, among the tens of thousands who closed their books to stage protest strikes in Frankfurt, Berlin and Bonn this week, as the main reason for launching street demonstrations not seen since the 1968 leftist revolt against what students denounced as a decadent materialism.
These days, with unemployment reaching nearly 12 percent of the work force, German students are more interested in landing jobs and joining the ranks of bourgeois society, not tearing it down. They insist that higher education should remain an entitlement paid for by the state, because as students they represent its future sources of productivity.
"Our education is supposed to be the basis for a more
competitive German economy into the next century,"
said Ansgar Gessner, who is in his first semester at
Berlin's Free University and who joined a protest march
Wednesday.
"We realize there must be a need to save money and
become more efficient," he continued. "But we can't
manage to secure the future of ourselves and our country
without the investment from government and industry."
Fabian Wagner, a 21-year-old engineering student, said:
"It's miserable and getting worse every year. Books are
too old and we don't have enough computers. Students
who want to take exams have to wait because no
professor is available. And then we get blamed for being
lazy and having low standards."
Like many others, Mr. Wagner balked at the idea that he or his parents should pay for his college education. "Education must be available to everybody, not only to the children of the wealthy," he said. Critics of higher education here say the system places a burden on those who do not get admitted to the universities, since their taxes help subsidize the studies of those who do gain entry. "The German system is absurd," says Steven Muller, an authority on German education at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
"There are too many students getting poor instruction with no rational means of support," he said. "They are unhappy because they get assigned to universities not of their own choosing. There is no alumni network to raise money so the states get stuck with the bill.
"It's a formula for paralysis." The worsening plight is driving the country's brightest to study overseas, including Chancellor Kohl's own sons, who emigrated to Harvard and MIT. Some administrators say that unless reforms are initiated soon, Germany will suffer a serious brain drain.