Bologna reforms in Germany

Abstract

Toni Feder gave a vivid account of Europe’s struggle with streamlining its higher education system under the Bologna Process ( Physics Today, May 2010, page 24). The overall goal is the establishment of the European Higher Education Area, in which program transparency and course and degree comparability and compatibility greatly facilitate mobility across Europe and attract students from abroad. The idea has seen wide acceptance. In the implementation of the Bologna reforms, however, problems have arisen, often as a result of the strong push for standardization that disregards the diversity of countries and disciplines.Before Bologna, German universities had five-year physics programs, and the excellent reputation of the diplom degree resulted in very few unemployed physicists even in economically difficult times. Consequently, the German physics community initially rejected the bachelor’s/master’s structure of the Bologna Process. Lawmakers, however, viewed the two-tiered degree system as a welcome cost-cutting measure at public universities and made plans to accept only 30% of the bachelors into master’s programs. Reducing the education of 70% of physics students to a three-year bachelor’s curriculum would allow publicly funded universities to reduce faculty and cut costs, but it would also create an ill-prepared physics workforce. After the Bologna reforms were signed into German law, the Conference of German Physics Departments (KFP), which I represent as a spokesman, and the German Physical Society (DPG), on whose executive board I serve, played a constructive role in implementing them. The resulting recommendations for the design of three-year bachelor’s and two-year master’s programs were adopted by essentially all German physics departments. Therefore, Barbara Kehm’s opinion in Feder’s story that German scholars are resisting the dual-degree system does not apply to the physics community. Both the KFP and the DPG have made it clear that physics bachelors should continue toward a master’s degree to achieve a qualification comparable with the diplom in physics. That recommendation was motivated by discussions with leading industry representatives, who expect physicists to have skills equivalent to those of previous diplom holders. Interestingly, efforts at German universities are under way to retain the name of the highly popular diplom degree for students who have completed their master’s-level education. German physics departments have weathered the Bologna reforms and have preserved the high quality of their programs in the transition. Much work remains to be done to fine-tune the curricula. Unfortunately, the Bologna reformers have recently opened yet another can of worms by defining the doctoral degree as the third cycle of higher education. Traditionally, the focus of the German doctoral effort in the sciences has been on research rather than classroom study. A structured PhD program would put a stronger emphasis on classroom study. Research across German universities would suffer dramatically, since doctoral candidates are the universities’ primary research talent. Enhancing educational components at the expense of research activities in physics doctoral programs is viewed critically by the German physics community.© 2010 American Institute of Physics.