College Life Blog

Archive for November, 2008

Throughout Germany, more than 10,000 students are protesting and demonstrating in 70-cities over university programs, rising costs and numerous other conditions.  As a result of their demands for government intervention and immediate action, the Education Minister in Berlin has called for the immediate enactment of reforms that have already been agreed upon.  According to German Translation workers covering the protests,  there have been a number of mixed signals from school and government officials concerning the streamlining of academic programs, changes to degree programs, school policies, financial aid, age limits and national grant programs.

According a number of outspoken German Translation students, demonstrations began on Monday and are anticipated to continue through the weekend.  Apparently, the protests began at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich sparked these new comments from the Education Minister.  Other protests are being held simultaneously on 20 different university campuses throughout Germany.  However, German students are not alone in their call for academic reform.  In fact, the German protests are more of a display of camaraderie for students in Austria who are also demanding changes.  In Austria, complaints range from  overloaded degree courses, social inequality within the educational system, chronic funding shortages, and the introduction of tuition fees and the bachelor and master system into German universities problems in restructuring bachelors and masters degree programs.  More specifically, student tend to be protesting most for publicly funded education.

As part of their protests, students are planning blockades and sit-in to raise awareness and start formal discussion for new reforms to the German education system.  Under the slogan of “Money for college, not financial institutions,” the students plan to conduct mock government bailouts by conducting mock bank robberies and sit-ins.   According to Certified German Translation workers, German politicians have claimed that while there is no money for education their actions show that there is plenty of money to bailout banks.

At the same time, students are also protesting the revision of curriculum that is geared towards the needs of the business world.  The new programs tend to reduce funding for programs like sociology in favor of engineering, healthcare and business programs.