Move to reverse ban on joint federal and state funding of universities

The coalition committee of Germany’s centre-right government has announced a plan to widen the scope for higher education cooperation with the country’s state governments.

A constitutional amendment will enable the federal government and the 16 state governments jointly to fund teaching and research in higher education institutions, currently prohibited by regulations.

The federal government is funding a number of nationwide projects such as the Excellence Initiative, a special inter-university competition to allocate new resources to winning institutions, and the Higher Education Funding Pact, which is providing urgently needed additional money for higher education.

But permanent federal support for teaching, or for a research facility within public-funded higher education, is ruled out by a 'cooperation ban' which came into force with the federalism reform of 2006 as a clarification of relations between the federal and state governments.

The cultural sovereignty of Germany’s states is enshrined in the constitution, and state governments tend to be very sensitive about federal politicians interfering with their administration of education.

However, with revenue dwindling at state level, partly due to the economic downturn of the past few years, the states are eager to get hold of additional federal funding for higher education institutions.

The funding crisis has been aggravated by a huge surge in student numbers due to the end of conscription, and also because of a trend towards more and more young people taking up studying in general.

“The new amendment to the constitution represents a significant strengthening of universities, which form the core of our higher education and research system,” said Federal Minister of Education and Research Annette Schavan (pictured). “So it benefits the students.”

Schavan also noted that, with the Excellence Initiative ending in 2017, the question arose as to how lasting funding security could be achieved. “We want more internationalism in our higher education and research system,” she said. “We need firmly established top-level research that is conducted at universities and has an impact worldwide.”

The ministry will now compile a draft bill for review by various departments. Then the state and local governments will be consulted before the draft bill is presented to cabinet. Voting in the lower and upper houses of parliament takes place in the autumn. If all goes according to plan, the amendment could come into effect on 1 March 2013.

The opposition Social Democrats (SPD) tabled a motion to do away with the constitutional ban on cooperation in January, and were backed by the other opposition parties, the Greens and Die Linke.

“We have to do away with the cooperation ban,” said SPD parliamentary faction leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “It is stupid that the federal and state governments are forbidden to work together to eliminate shortcomings.” Under current legislation, the federal government would not even be allowed to bail out a state’s education system in the event of that state going bankrupt.

Nevertheless, amendments to the constitution require a two-thirds majority in the federal parliament, and the parliamentary factions have no common approach regarding what a new funding concept should look like.

According to Schavan, it is “unacceptable that the states should call for money and then want to determine on their own what it is spent on”.

The state of Schleswig-Holstein raised the motion in the upper house, representing the federal states, together with the city state of Hamburg. But the federal states have no common approach either, with Hesse and Bavaria even rejecting any amendment whatsoever to present constitutional rules in the education sector.