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German students turn to private universities

More and more German students are opting to study at private colleges and universities rather than state ones. Attendance rose by ten percent over the past year and has increased six-fold since 2001, despite some costing around €10,000 a semester.

German students turn to private universities
Photo: DPA

Roughly 137,800 students were registered in private post-secondary institutions in the winter semester 2012/13, a ten percent increase from the year before, the Federal Statistics Office reported on Tuesday. That compared to a five-percent rise in the number of students in the private and state sectors. 

Over the past 12 years the number has swelled sixfold, from only 24,600 students registered in the 2000/01 winter semester.

Private vocational colleges are attracting the most students, hosting roughly 85 percent of all those in private post-secondary education. Law, economics and social sciences are the most popular courses.

Piret Lees from the Association of Private Universities (VPH) told The Local the reputation of non-state institutes had grown dramatically in the last ten years.

"There has been a boom in both sectors [private and state] but people are now more aware that there are private universities in Germany," she said. "The classes are smaller, the teachers know their students and there is a more individual approach. The drop out rate is also lower, about eight percent compared to 20 percent in the state sector." 

Lees added that private institutions also had a reputation of being more career-focused with students getting more job advice. 

The highest number of students opting to go private was in Hamburg (22 percent) and the lowest were the eastern states of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with one percent.

But despite recent growth, just six percent of students go private in Germany, well under the average of 29 percent in the OECD club of economically developed states, according to 2011 figures published by the Federal Statistics Office. 

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ISLAM

Police probe opened after poster campaign against ‘Islamophobic’ lecturers at French university

The French government condemned on Monday a student protest campaign targeting two university professors accused of Islamophobia, saying it could put the lecturers in danger.

Police probe opened after poster campaign against 'Islamophobic' lecturers at French university
Illustration photo: Justin Tallis/AFP

Student groups plastered posters last week on the walls of a leading political science faculty in Grenoble that likened the professors to “fascists” and named them both in a campaign backed by the UNEF student union.

Junior interior minister Marlene Schiappa said the posters and social media comments recalled the online harassment of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty last October, who was beheaded in public after being denounced online for offending Muslims.

“These are really odious acts after what happened with the decapitation of Samuel Paty who was smeared in the same way on social networks,” she said on the BFM news channel. “We can’t put up with this type of thing.”

“When something is viewed as racist or discriminatory, there’s a hierarchy where you can report these types of issues, which will speak to the professor and take action if anything is proven,” Schiappa said.

Sciences Po university, which runs the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) in Grenoble in eastern France, also condemned the campaign on Monday and has filed a criminal complaint.

An investigation has been opened into slander and property damage after the posters saying “Fascists in our lecture halls. Islamophobia kills” were found on the walls of the faculty.

One of the professors is in charge of a course called “Islam and Muslims in contemporary France” while the other is a lecturer in German who has taught at the faculty for 25 years.

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