Tuition fees about to be imposed in Germany
Irena Haivas, Freiburg
Katie Reid, London
German students may have to pay tuition fees after the
High Court ruled that individual states have the right to introduce fees.
The decision reached by the Federal Constitutional
Court on 26 February, which overturned the ban on tuition fees introduced
by the Social Democrat Party (SDP) led ruling coalition two years ago,
opened the way for states to start charging students.
Bavaria may try to introduce fees by the end of the
year. Hamburg, Baden-Württemberg, Lower Saxony, and Saarland are also
keen to start charging students. In Baden-Württemberg students may
have to pay by spring in 2006, according to a weekly news magazine, Der Spiegel.
But the economics minister in Saarland, Jürgen
Schreier (Christian Democratic Union), said that there would be no tuition
fees until scholarships were available, and he said he would put
“thoroughness and social balance before speed.”
SDP Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has warned the
states that the introduction of fees could deter students. At a
pre-election party conference in Husum, Schleswig-Holstein, on 2 February,
he said that Germany didn’t need fewer students, but more.
SDP education minister Edelgard Bulmahn urged states
not to make students pay for education and told them “not to act
rashly but to make sure that pupils from lower income families can still
study in our country.”
10'000 students protested against the introduction of
tuition fees in various towns and cities across Germany. Students are
concerned about how fees will be used by the universities.
Marion Csiky, spokesperson for the Ministry of
Science, Research and Arts in Baden-Württemberg told the studentBMJ, that the
introduction of fees will raise the quality of the university system.
She added that the additional money will improve the number of seminars and
faculty members can be better adjusted. “Students will be able to
take loans, which are independent of the parent income and will only have
to be paid once the student reaches a certain minimum salary in his later
job. There are also a number of scholarships, especially from the business
field,” she said. “Through this reform, we will have younger,
better trained graduates.”
However, Anne Jansen, secretary of European
Medical Students Association (EMSA) in Jena, said: “We are not
satisfied with the quality of the medical education. Seminars are too
crowded; there are no free seats in lectures; there is too much theory
based learning and not enough time spent learning skills.”
The tuition fees may help to improve the quality of
the teaching, she told the studentBMJ. But she added that until now, money paid by students went
to the education authorities of each state rather than the universities
themselves.
Jansen fears that if students start paying money
directly to the universities, the authorities will no longer subsidise
courses and students will be faced with rising tuition fees and courses
will not improve. “In a few years you might have elite universities
and bad ones, as in the United States,” she added.
She cited Scandinavia as an area that has a good
education policy: “Take a look at the Scandinavian countries. They
are not paying for their studies and receive 300 Euros each month from the
state. Is education not important enough for the German state?”
studentBMJ 2005;13:89-132 March ISSN 0966-6494
