“Bäh wie Bachelor—what the student protests in Germany are about. (As far as I can tell from far away Albion….)

The German students are protesting for a number of different reasons.  Part of the reason for their unhappiness has to do with a big change that has just begun to take place at the German universities. As a part of the so-called Bologna-process where the European Union countries decided to streamline their degree offerings, the German Universities have changed the types of degrees that students can obtain. It used to be that you did not get a “Bachelors degree” from a German University. The first academic degree that anyone could get was either a “Magister” –which was the equivalent of an M.A. or a “Diplom” for more technical subjects. One could also get a teaching degree but that was considered the “same” in terms of time needed as the M.A.

 Now students in Germany will also first get their B.A. and then, if they want, they can continue on to get their M.A. Also the high school is dropping the last school year the so-called “13^th school year which most high schools had in the west.

 So in a way the students are protesting because the school and university system is beginning to look more like the American system, at least in terms of the structure and the number of years. And also because some universities and some states are asking for quite a bit more money from the students—still nothing like the tuition at a private college ein America, but more than students (and their parents) are used to paying in Germany. Most Germans feel that being able to get a university degree is a right that you should be able to take advantage of if your grades are good enough.  The question of whether one has to pay shouldn’t enter into the equation, but of course it still does, even without tuition you still need to pay for room and board somehow, plus whatever tuition the uni wants. Many German students feel like they are never a part of the decision making process (because that is done by bureaucrats and politicians) but yet they are the ones who have to “suffer” through the changes.

 If you look at the pictures at the bottom of this Stern report, you can see that some of the protest-actions are pretty funny—although I’m sure not everyone thinks so: it looks like in some places students staged mock-bank robberies, probably because of an increase in tuition, and the sign of the picture of the girls in Munich reads: “my pimp will pay for my tuition.”  

 It’s hard for me to get a feel for how this is all going over in the general public—perhaps people who are over there and read this can chime in—does it seem like people are understanding of the students or do they think they’re all just wasting their time and not getting their work done. I’ve been a professor for too long and a part of me think that at least for some of them that is an added attraction of these demos, plus the weather looks really nice in Germany right now so why not hang around outside??? Sorry but seriously how many protests have taken place in really bad weather???