Last Updated on December 28, 2022
It is worthwhile reading this article because it helps students prepare for studying in Germany by giving them an understanding of the german model of higher education.
Although the small American Christian college with its emphasis on student learning, Christian ideas and piety, and residential living has always more closely resembled the traditional British colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the large American university that emerged in the late nineteenth century, with its emphasis upon faculty scholarship and faculty academic freedom, and a de-emphasis upon religion, stems directly from the nineteenth-century German state universities. Whereas the English, in the words of Abraham Flexner, “believe in religion, in manners, in politics” (and thus operate with universities to prepare gentlemen for service to the church, the political establishment, and society),1 the Germans, after the founding of the University of Berlin, believed foremost in independent scholarship while eschewing concern for character development.
Universities and equivalent institutions of higher education
In addition to the traditional universities, the Technische Hochschulen or Technische Universitäten, that specialise in natural and engineering sciences also enjoy university status. Also equivalent to universities are establishments that only offer a limited range of courses of study, such as theological colleges and Pädagogische Hochschulen. The latter, which still exist only in Baden-Württemberg, have been incorporated into universities in the other Länder or expanded into institutions offering a wider range of courses.
What these institutions have in common, as a rule, is the right to award the Doktorgrad (Promotionsrecht). Academic and scientific research – particularly basic research – and the training of the next generation of academics are also distinctive features of universities and equivalent institutions of higher education.
Colleges of art and music
Colleges of art and music offer courses of studies in the visual, design and performing arts as well as in the area of film, television and media, and in various music subjects; both, in some cases, also teach the appertaining theoretical disciplines (fine arts, art history and art pedagogy, musicology, history and teaching of music, media and communication studies as well as, more recently, the area of the new media). Some colleges teach the entire gamut of artistic subjects, others only certain branches of study.
Fachhochschulen
Fachhochschulen (universities of applied sciences) were introduced in 1970/71 as a new type of institution in the system of higher education in the Federal Republic of Germany. They fulfil their own specific educational function, characterised by a practice-oriented bias in teaching and research, a usually integrated semester of practical training, and professors, who have, in addition to their academic qualifications, gained professional experience outside the field of higher education.
In some Länder Fachhochschulen (universities of applied sciences) are called Hochschulen für angewandte Wissenschaften (higher education institutions of applied sciences) or Hochschulen für angewandte Forschung (higher education institutions of applied research). In Bayern some Hochschulen für angewandte Wissenschaften are entitled to call themselves Technische Hochschule (technical higher education institution).
A relatively high proportion of them, more than 50 per cent of 215 Fachhochschulen, are not state-maintained, but are to a large extent subject to the same legal provisions as state Fachhochschulen. They vary considerably in terms of size, number of students and number of courses of studies, and consequently the individual Fachhochschulen have a specific regional character or particular area of specialisation. A special role is played by the 29 Verwaltungsfachhochschulen (Fachhochschulen for public administration), which train civil servants for careers in the so-called higher level of the civil service. They are maintained by the Federation or by a Land. Their students have revocable civil servant status.
