University admissions chaos looms

Students in Germany applying for admission-restricted subjects will face chaotic enrolment conditions until at least mid-2013 due to technical problems dogging the introduction of new online national higher education admissions procedures.

The Dialogue-oriented Service Procedure, or DoSV, was to be introduced at 300 higher education institutions for subjects with admission restrictions for the winter semester 2012-13, according to the schedule announced by Hochschulstart, a foundation supported by the rectors' conference Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK) and the governments of Germany's 16 federal states.

Now, the foundation says, only 40 institutions will be able to take part in what has been scaled down to a pilot project by late summer.

One of the chief difficulties appears to be obsolete administrative software used by universities.

A lack of coordination among institutions has led to confusion that has been causing problems at the beginning of semesters for years.

Study places used to be allocated centrally via the Dortmund-based admissions placement centre the Zentralstelle für die Vergabe von Studienplätzen. But from 2003-04 on, both the HRK and the state governments urged that the centre be phased out.

The ensuing chaos has resulted in multiple applications and multiple admissions, regularly leaving around 20,000 study places in admission-restricted subjects vacant.

Referring to recently introduced regulations on state government competencies Ulla Burchardt, an opposition Social Democrat who heads the federal parliament's education committee, said that "for years, federal education minister Annette Schavan has ignored that even after the reforms of federalism, the federal government still holds responsibility for admission to study courses and also for the degrees".

Burchardt maintained that neither individual enrolment procedures for each institution nor 16 different state regulations for the allocation of study places make sense economically or politically, adding that they are playing havoc with young people's careers as well as wasting public money with the large number of vacancies.

The Hochschulstart foundation said that "further steps are essential to establish a fully operational DoSV", and claimed that participation in the procedure will increase step by step to put into practice a system working across the board in the medium term.

So far, the federal government has paid EUR15 million (US$19 million) for a complicated procedure that still is not working.