and Master Programmes in German Higher Education Institutions

Institutions are polarised with regard to the question of increased co-operation with industryin the context of B/M: about an equal number of institutions is in favour and against it. Interestingly,among the TUs, there is a clear majority against increased co-operation. Thismight be due to the fact that TUs have already make full use of the potentials for cooperationwith industry, but it might also indicate that TUs are particularly cautious aboutthe risks of dependency (Chapter 7).9.7 Crucial conditionsAccreditation. Like the new degrees, the national accreditation system was introduced for atrial period, and a number of questions can be raised regarding its future Fragen (see alsoKMK/HRK (Hg.) 2001). In February 2002, only about 4% of Bachelor and 10% of Masterprogrammes had been accredited through this system, and many programmes are still waitingfor accreditation.Among institutions, a positive attitude towards accreditation prevails. Nearly half of institutionalmanagement consider it an improvement over the previous system of “Rahmenprüfungsordnungen”and only 5% consider it to be worse. 20% of institutions think thataccreditation should be carried out differently. Nevertheless, the large majority of institutionswill continue to seek accreditation through the national accreditation agencies.As long as the major reason for one programme to be accredited and another programmenot to be accredited is that the latter is still in the cue, the diagnostic value of accreditationis limited. Also, accreditation so far has been costly (ca. €12,000 accreditation fee per programme,ca. €15.000 to 25.000 if indirect costs to the institution are taken into account).Much will depend on ways to speed up the accreditation process and reduce costs. If oneconsiders that accreditation, even if based on a highly demanding procedure, basically cannotguarantee but a minimum standard – and that all accredited degrees are offered by establishedinstitutions that are part of the public higher education system – the cost-benefitratiofor such a procedure becomes questionable. An alternative would be to accredit institutionsor parts of institutions instead of individual programmes. Such a form of accreditationfocuses on the institutional responsibility for curricular development and quality assurance-international accreditation institutions such as ECUI, CEMS and AACSB alreadywork according to this model (Chapter 8).Funding. While a significant share of institutions has received extra funding for the introductionof B/M either through publicly funded organisations such as the DAAD or directlyfrom government, these extra funding sources are likely to cease once B/M become a regularpart of the higher education system. An important question therefore is how these programmeswill be funded in the long run. It was mentioned before that the student-teacherratios of B/M are often better than those in the traditional degrees that are largely determinedthrough the “Curricularnormwerte” in the “Kapazitätsverordnung”, rendering theB/M far more expensive than the traditional programmes and also limiting the number ofstudents that can be dealt with by a given number of staff. As B/M move from the pioneerphase to become a regular part of the system, these issues will need to be addressed (Chapter8).69