Der Bologna-Prozess aus Sicht der Hochschulforschung

Seite 50 | Where does Germany stand in international comparison?
Where does Germany stand in international
comparison?
Barbara M. Kehm
1. Introduction: Starting Points in Germany
In international comparisons – be they about statistical indicators in OECD‟s Education at a
Glance, in PISA assessment results, or in comparative analyses of the implementation of
Bologna reforms – Germany often ends up in a non-remarkable position in the middle of the
field or even lower and is then seen as lagging behind. This contribution wants to identify the
reasons for this.
Concerning the implementation of Bologna reform goals, Germany basically had a rather
good head start insofar as experimental clauses in the Framework Law for Higher Education
had made it possible to introduce a two-cycle structure of studies already in 1998. When the
Sorbonne and one year later the Bologna Declaration were signed a number of German
universities were already experimenting with the introduction of Bachelor and Master
programmes. Schwarz-Hahn and Rehburg (2003, S. 34f.) could show in their study of a
representative sample of German universities that seven percent of German study
programmes were offered with a Bachelor or Master degree in 1998 and six percent had
started in 1997 or earlier.
Germany can be seen as a forerunner in the implementation of a two-cycle structure when
we take into account the two-cycle structure of Diplom I and Diplom II that was characteristic
for comprehensive universities, a reform model of the 1970s. This structure was not exactly
the same as the Bachelor and Master structure but the tiered degree structure can be seen
as a functional equivalent.
However, with the advent of the Bologna reforms a widespread change to the new structure
of tiered programmes and degrees was delayed by the fact that guidelines for
implementation announced to be forthcoming by the Standing Conference of Ministers for
Cultural and Educational Affairs of the 16 German states were not published until 2004. In
contrast to quite a number of other Bologna signatory countries which claimed to have
finished implementation early, the change to the two-cycle structure in Germany was
bottlenecked by newly established accreditation procedures and slower due to integrated
and not sequential curricular reforms.
The third issue to be mentioned in this context is the fact that all students had the right to
finish their studies under the same conditions as they started them so that traditional
programmes and programmes in the two-cycle structure had to be offered parallel for several
years.
Naturally there was also some resistance from the academic profession. Mainly a group of
large technical universities refused to change their engineering Diplom degrees to the new
structure claiming that the German engineering Diplom was well reputed worldwide.
Furthermore, they argued that it was impossible to educate and train a proper engineer in
only three years. In addition, a group of subjects in the field of the state regulated professions
was excluded from the two-cycle structure (Law, Medicine, Teacher Training).