The Konfettirisierung of research and teaching.

Students rebelling against bachelor's degree in rumort professors, too. Jörn-Axel Meyer sees strong fragmentation trends: The study points to a pure fighter, and also the increasingly small-scale research, criticized the Berlin scientists in the host contribution.

 

Already in 1994 dubbed the Saarbrückener economists Bruno Tietz the development of the German research with the term "Konfettirisierung" - and so brought the assembled colleagues laugh. But as the laughter, this comparison with the fragments, which in joyous occasions in the air will not now. The term seems well suited to describe what we in the German university landscape experience, both in teaching and in research.

First there is the doctrine, which focuses on the new Bachelor's and Master's degrees are available. They arose in the wake of the decisions of the European Ministers of Education in Bologna in 1999 and meetings were to follow in the years thereafter concretised. The overall goal was the harmonization of European higher education. The new courses are not only internationally more comparable and compatible ", they are also more efficient, shorter, and early academic study and allow more mobility between universities.

Knowledge is not yet thinking

The implementation in Germany
caused much criticism. The expected effects on comparability, mobility and short duration of the study seem to show more recent studies, only rudimentary, or even not to have occurred. The new bachelor's or master's degree but show a markedly different than the previous teaching courses at diploma and degree. Even though learning may not be efficient, which it was learned. And at what price?

PERSONAL

Jörn-Axel Meyer, 46, is the direction in Industrial Mechanical Engineering and University Professor. Since 2002 he heads the Institute for German small and medium-sized enterprises in Berlin.

Many of the new programs are characterized by the simple juxtaposition of - sometimes referred ambitious - courses. In Germany accredited courses were mostly composed of a sequence of events exist. Each of these courses will be from a faculty contest, otherwise they are not coordinated.

The teachers - many low or no abgefunden and much more by the hope of academic Lehrtitel motivated - know each other and not even know what is going on in other courses taught there. The student is then on leave from the mosaic of a coherent curriculum herauszulesen. Thus the impression of a regular cluster of teaching confetti left.

Costly Lehrapparate, or even permanently occupied chairs are in principle for such courses is not necessary. And this is like those seen with low Lehrkosten maximum tuition fees in the market and thus achieve commercial success or simply want to avoid budget gaps.

For knowledge is minutiae

This dismemberment and fragmentation of knowledge can be minutiae. They animate the students, knowledge acquisition as "abzuhakendes" collect points to understand. Were 20 years ago the students throughout the Department examined, it is now almost entirely of only a previously designated part of the substance queried.

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But this stands in stark contrast to the changing demands of our society, an increasingly holistic understanding of our world requires - less of a "knowledge" but rather a "thinking" in contexts, analogies and causalities.

That there is another way, shows the alleged U.S. model, where many bachelor's degree in the teaching of thinking and ability to detect correlations are. In Germany, although the name, but not over this basic philosophy.

These are the conditions for teachers in Germany - yet - well, if Lehrstuhlinhaber sovereign may represent a subject, they can be the students from their first to the last day in the university and accompany them with a meaningful arc through their professions as a whole provide a coherent picture of the contents and ways of thinking. This strength of the German university system, however, with new courses too often lost. And it seems that the holistic-minded professors are increasingly due to the very specialized professor is removed, hence the Konfettirisierung already in the person of the researcher and teacher begins.

One indicator of this theory can be derived from changing the appeal process to read. Assessors for appeals squint - except on the somewhat mundane criterion of third party funding - now almost exclusively on the publication of refereed articles in journals of the candidates, as in "rated A-or B-Journals" (where A and B are the best ratings). Monographs and textbooks are almost no longer be considered.

Researchers are focusing increasingly on close subjects

While it is positive if the quality of the publication on the rank of the publishing medium is measured, although it leads the researchers to deal with highly specialized, but recognized individual contributions ( "Papers") scientific eminence. Books, however, as a possible embodiment of a more holistic and especially a comprehensive view, remain on the line - not least because they are rarely subject to verification by third parties are subject.

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A second indicator is found in the Habilitation, which many young scientists, despite the introduction of the junior professorship still aspire: While it is still a decade ago was a stigma, rather than a closed monography (broad, yet specialized in one part) with a series of individual contributions (ie, "cumulative") to habilitieren, this is almost standard today.

Extensive writings are now no longer in the evaluation of candidates for professorships tend to favor highly specialized individual contributions respected, then the researchers, and hence the later teachers of the incentive to devote more attention to a narrow area to concentrate when you attempt to do also take a more fundamental and wider arc to beat.

But it is precisely this ability to our professors, despite the specialized expertise received. Because who does not bow to the great beat, you can not convey it. Fragmentation in research is also a fragmentation of teaching expected.

Misconceived professional qualification

But this - misunderstood - a model from the U.S. seems to be appealing. There are many self-employed teachers, professors, all with titles, but on very different skill levels. In addition to full professor, the chair holders of German universities are most likely to meet, there are a greater number of Assistant and Associate Professors. There are usually no lone assistant in the system of professorate still can and want to climb (Tenure Track). They are often extremely specialized and sometimes found only with a handful of colleagues around the world who share their territory.

With this specialization, there is a tendency to focus primarily with highly specific journal articles to scientific eminence. It is noticeable that those scientists who have extensive and respected publishing monographs or textbooks, primarily full professor with an integral distance from the matter.

So it's no surprise that in the United States is a principle in the appointment criteria to recognize it: the higher the rank of qualification (from Assistant to Associate to Full Professor), the more generalist the professor. This principle we have been in Germany in the same way in the development of scientific staff assistant to the university college or university professor attends. But now we tend to Germany to the same criteria for the young as well as for the occupation of the (actually mature) Chair holder thereof - and thus the fragmentation in the organization of professors, and thus the research.

The German higher education system would do well to, if it retains its strength, not only in research, even in teaching. While we are now a shift in the American doctrine towards greater education of the mind can see, we run into Germany in pursuit of a misunderstood, specific to the fragmentation of professional qualification in teaching again afterwards. How fast, however, is certain zeitgeist philosophies and models as an aberration and out to change that makes us just before the financial world.