GERMANY: Higher education spending to boost economy

Germany's Education and Research Minister Annette Schavan has come up with proposals to fund measures in higher education and research as a way to help stimulate the country's flagging economy. Investing around EUR15 billion (US$20 billion) in higher education infrastructure and providing tax incentives for small and medium-sized business to spend more on research could provide a vital boost to business, Schavan says.

Her proposals are part of a wider package she recommends that would also benefit schools: "We need a programme for the repair and modernisation of school and higher education facilities," she said last week. "I want our schools to get fit for the future."

Such measures would support local industry, especially in the building sector, and promote modern energy-saving technologies. Procuring new computers and other equipment would help commerce.

Each higher education head should be given a certain amount of money to renovate and modernise his or her institution. Such a step, involving as little red tape as possible, could be taken quickly.

The state governments and local authorities would have to establish overall demand on the basis of rectors' and presidents' specifications. Each institution ought to receive an average of EUR100,000, depending on student numbers.

While Schavan says EUR15 billion would meet the demands from higher education, she notes that funding of R&D incentives would have to be assessed. At any rate, she stresses the overall benefit would be the preservation of local jobs, more tax revenue, a more innovative country emerging from the crisis once it is over, and no more complaints about the miserable state of repair that many institutions are in.

While Germany's Teachers' and Scientists' Trade Union (GEW) welcomed Schavan's proposals in principle, it also points out the programme as presented falls far short of actual requirements.

GEW Chairman Ulrich Thöne maintains that education expenditure must rise to at least 7% of GDP to reach the OECD average. Otherwise Germany will not be able to keep pace internationally.

Encouraging as they may have been in terms of student numbers, Thöne stresses that recent figures released by the Federal Statistical Office also indicate a further significant drop in the education share of GDP. The "never-never day" approach to increases in education spending adopted at the Education Summit last October is counterproductive when it comes to stimulating the economy, he says.

Thöne is also sceptical how Schavan's proposals will be funded. He anticipates conflicts between the state and the federal governments and calls for a solution that would incorporate them by coordinating their action in a framework of a nationally and internationally agreed strategy to combat the finance crisis.

"A programme to boost education must not fail because of bickering over responsibilities among the federal and state governments and the municipalities," Thöne warns.

michael.gardner@uw-news.com