Playing in the ruins

On Thursday, November 27th 1997, an estimated 40.000 students blocked the city of Bonn in a protest march against the educational and financial politics of Germany. Over the previous month, Germany had seen a groundswell of student protests, beginning with a complete strike of professors, students and employees that was called on October 29th at the University of Giessen. Soon, students at the universities of Marburg, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, and Kassel followed - all in Hessen where the Landtag, the state assembly, had just proposed a reform that would basically abolish all student administration in the universities. If the bills go through, all decisions about how the student parliament, the restaurants and other campus services are run will be returned to the Ministry of Education or functionaries directly nominated by the party, instead of being democratically voted on each campus.

In other parts of the country, students at two dozen universities and at several Polytechnics followed suit and joined the public protest, blocking libraries and lecture theatres. At the same time, more than a dozen student bodies at other universities prepared to take votes on whether or not to take such action as well. These were the biggest demonstrations, both in numbers and in media attention, since 1968. Although there were minor protest movements in 1982 and 1985, when government funding of students was severely cut and turned into loans, the support was significantly weaker in winter 1988/89 when several universities staged protest conventions against the commodification of the educational system which attracted a certain amount of publicity. But this most recent wave of public protest, people on all sides of the educational system felt, finally had a chance of exposing the euphemisms and cover-ups of Germany's academic and political mismanagement.

The protests mainly concentrate on the surmise that the current policy plans will effectively exclude all but the most affluent students, since the former federal grant or loan system no longer exists. In the past five years, the number of students who receive any federal support at all was cut in half; about 275.000, i.e. less than 15 per cent of students, receive a partial loan from the state which they repay after graduation. However, even those who benefit from this remainder of state support - which served half of the students when it was introduced in 1971 - only get a maximum of 995 DM per month, which is roughly three quarters of the estimated monthly income needed to support a single student. The situation is worse for graduate students; doctoral stipends, graduate fellowships and other financial support are granted only to a diminishing percentage, while the general tuition payments already introduced in some states are liable to increase steeply the longer one stays enrolled. Pressure is increasing to limit studies to 3 or 4 years and PhDs to 2-3 years, although this is seen as part of the Americanization, McDonaldisation of education, and many people resist it. Yet, students who have been enrolled for longer than a certain number of years - the limit being discussed - will soon have to pay a penalty of at least DM 1.000,- per semester in addition to the fees already imposed. At the same time, Germany squeezes its 1.9 million students into an outdated system that only offers, nominally, around 970.000 places.

The activists gleefully point out just how long the politicians imposing these desperate measures took to complete their own studies, and yet nobody is seriously opposed to fees in principle - if it became clear what the students would receive for them, a large number of them would be prepared to pay, especially if a loan system was established again. All over the country, street theatre, stunts like swimming through lakes in cold November weather, picketing, and gatecrashing academic and political administrations were televised and much commented on in the weekend's papers. To demonstrate the impossible overload, lectures were given on trains in Wuppertal, on the Underground in Bochum, on the ferry in Konstanz. With the increasing politicisation of the student movement, protests were also directed against the proposed introduction of entry exams, a radical reduction of study material, depth and length, and the consolidation of degrees offered in the Anglosaxon model. At the same time, many Professorships will have to remain vacant or be abolished due to the cuts in the educational spending. Libraries such as the one in Bonn, severely damaged after the two recent floods of the Rhine river, no longer have sufficient funds to maintain subscriptions to scientific journals and had to put a freeze on new book purchases while some of the old stock begins to rot. When the federal government announced it would free an extra 40 million DM, this was met by Professors, Deans and administrators with sarcastic cheers; they estimate that ten times as much would be needed immediately - but even the 40 million are not covered by the federal budget. And to put it into perspective: to conjure up 40 million in an apparently grand gesture still only equals a third of the annual budget of a small university like Konstanz, on the Swiss border.

Konstanz University was among those who voted on strike action only a month after the demonstrations were instigated in Kassel. But as it is one of the few places where nominal fees as well as penalties are already imposed since winter 1996/97 and rising every term, several forms of protests have been going on for a while. Among the less publicised actions were various legal group actions and a call to pay the fees, but at the last possible moment: and not to the university, but into a trust fund which was only going to be released when it became clear what students would get for their money. Because as it is, every term means less service, less democracy, fewer teaching staff, more people per class, fewer librarians, fewer new books.

Konstanz was not only host to the Papal "Konzil" which burned Czech reformer Jan Hus at the stake in 1415 - this barbecue of a gander (cf. hussa = goose) was later commented upon by Martin Luther - but the very building used to imprison Hus has served, for several years, as the first and main building of Konstanz University in the 1960s. Now it has a postmodern campus outside the town, and the former monastery has become a hotel. Auspicious hospitality! Still, Konstanz University enjoys a good reputation, particularly in research; between 1991 and 1995, this small university was ranked No. 5 in total research funding among the top German institutions, and in relation to its size even No. 3. Last year, the 36.7 million DM in federal research money constituted 30 percent of the university's budget. With a teacher-student ratio of 1:13 (statistically), Konstanz is far better off than most other places (on average, 1:50). Humanities, and in particular literature and philosophy, were among Konstanz's strengths - among other things, it is home to a Philosophical Archive which holds the estates of Rudolf Carnap, Paul Feyerabend and Hans Jonas. With Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser among its founding professors, the literature group has attained international recognition. Now, however, both Italian and the Slavic languages are rumoured to be earmarked for closure; overall, this summer the humanities had 10 per cent fewer new freshmen than last year.

If Nietzsche was right, the German climate alone is sufficient to discourage even the most heroic bowels. But on Tuesday December 2nd, the students at Konstanz University voted for continuous strike action, and immediately proceeded to block every single room in the house; volunteer guards were recruited, shouts and whistles put an end to all teaching and administration. The president chose not to call in the police, as happened in Berlin, or private security firms, as other universities did. The bridge over the Rhine was blocked and press conferences called; at the last count late that afternoon, more than 60 universities were "on strike" all over Germany, and in mid-December the press counted 100 and rising. 30.000 students from all over the country were demonstrating in Düsseldorf alone, and other cities report similar numbers.

Of the 1.700 people working at Konstanz University, only 750 are academics; many of them joined the protests and arranged for special lectures and video screenings. For instance, the well-known philosopher Prof. Juergen Mittelstrass addressed the university with a report on the work done so far by the ministerial commission for structural revirement. The rest of the workforce either left the campus or browsed the info-walls put up; there, one could read not only a wide selection of press coverage, but also various emails, printed out, from other universities reporting on their activities, and asking for collaboration. The detailed program for the following days also announced several oppositional politicians. Of the 10.000 students, few were seen on campus an hour after the resolution was passed. Some wanted to see the action in Stuttgart or Bonn; some returned at night for the "strike party" with an English band playing drum'n bass/digital dub. Many colorful flyers distributed all over the central areas of the university documented the legal propositions at issue, the potential risks and solutions, and posters and wallpaper are covered with the mask of Darth Vader ("Spar Wars - Studis Streik Back"), the smile of the former Lady Diana Spencer ("Lucky Streik"), and the bulge of Helmut Kohl.

Once a student here has studied for 7 years, she typically would have spent around DM 95.000 without fees; over 60 per cent earn their way by part- time jobs. However, in Bavaria and other German states, legislators are now proposing to disallow jobbing and threaten to exmatriculate students who work during their university years. Among other ideas being discussed among local and federal politicians, administrators and reformers, two tendencies can be distinguished: less financial autonomy, less spending on the one hand, on the other hand more competition between students and also between universities. Access to education will therefore not be open to all strata of society any more; soon, every university will be able to charge fees according to their discretion, and students will be able to discern what they get for their money. Today however, all fees go straight into the state budgets and don't return to the education sector. On the one hand, everybody enrolled at a public university will have to pay fees; but most students take longer than the limited number of years in a system where you often cannot get into the course you need to get ahead, and in many disciplines such as chemistry, biology, medicine and the humanities a doctoral dissertation is required for employment in this Diss-me-land. On the other hand, universities are supposed to be able to pick their students among applicants, which is unheard of in the history of German academia; entry exams, cramming schools and elite ranking are reviled as antidemocratic.

Certain ideals inherited from Humboldt are now mentioned only as problems for the 90s. In the European community, only the Greeks spend less of their annual budget on education. The most recent federal report on Germany's 230 universities shows that in sum, only 41.000 students started a degree this summer, down 5 per cent from last year. Overall, 38.000 professors are teaching 1.9 million students; the federal government spends around 1.8 billion DM per year, and the states claim their contribution is around 1 billion DM annually. Klaus Landfried, the president of the federal council of universities, was quoted on TV and in the papers as saying "we need 9 billion more". While most German media were eager to portray the recent student demonstrations as merely badly concealed or even transparent careerist votes for safety and elitism, many politicians and administrators thought it best simply to fraternize benevolently with the demonstrators - and thus nobody seems to feel publicly responsible. As for who has any decent ideas about how to improve the university system, most commentators look towards the less than half a dozen private institutions Germany has, most of them either in Economics or Management of course, and only one that offers degrees in medicine, sociology, various kinds of therapy... They are both costly and very successful; one would expect to pay just over 600 Dollars a month, plus administrative fees, rent, food and books - still, they offer really decent courses and are already far superior to the state schools in their areas of specialisation. No funding there, just private loans or parental support, combined with summer jobs and paid internships.

Problems are also obvious in the international context, comparisons being very unpopular. Keeping in touch with people abroad, in Britain or the US, or worse even, daring to quote someone French is once again seen as transgression. In any other context, such peer pressure would be unthinkable; in the university, an isolationist ideology still festers. Legislation concerning foreign students in Germany was only changed recently, and now allows foreign students to stay for longer than before (up to 15 years if they aim for a PhD); also, they don't have to prove a permanent address in Germany any more, or finances for a full five years before even entering the country, just one year's support will suffice for them to enrol, and they are even permitted to change their course of study once in their career in a German university. Still, Germany only counts a few hundred foreign students per year, apart from those who come and leave through exchange programs.

The most recent unemployment statistics (November 97) show yet another in crease to 4.32 million unemployed, or 11.3 per cent - but ironically, even adding the 1.9 million students to the statistics would not make a splash, since many of them are already working regular jobs alongside their university enrolment. The big hidden figure which has consistently been swept under the carpet is the number of people not counted any more in the official unemployment statistics after they have been out of work for longer than a certain number of years: the theory being that once you are unemployed for that long, you are lost for the market in two ways, both because you have been away for too long to be employable, and because it is assumed that by then you are content to subsist on the minimal income you receive for doing nothing.

What are universities for in Germany today, then? They just founded a new university in Erfurt, in the east, or rather re-opened an old school (founded in 1392, closed in 1810) where teaching will start next year. Several other universities in the east, like Greifswald and Frankfurt an der Oder, are very small and attract very few new students. The decision where to attend university is either made for you centrally by the government in the case of certain subjects (like biology, medicine, and others where the numbers enrolled have to be controlled exactly), or, for those where you can pick freely, is made on the basis of a) how high the rent is in relation to the fun factors, and b) how far away the town is from your parents' house (very close, or very far, being the typical choices). But faced with a teacher-student ratio of up to 1-600, very little incentive for students to finish degrees, and utter confusion about what a university education actually is any more beyond a shelter from (un)employment, the national and state governments are fighting over who is supposed to take the blame or pick up the bill. With one state going ahead proposing new legislature, and another even imposing fees before the legislative side was really cleared, it seems as if right now, people are waiting for the other states to catch up before anyone raises the question where to go from here.