German higher education institutions abroad
Dieser Artikel in Deutsch
The German Jordanian University (GJU) has commenced its activities for the winter semester of 2005/2006 at its temporary site in Amman. It is being set up in co-operation with the Jordanian Government by the Fachhochschule Magdeburg-Stendal along the lines of German Fachhochschulen (degree-awarding, practice-oriented higher education institutions).
Nowadays, more and more German higher education institutions are setting up subsidiaries abroad. Some of them consist of participation in establishing German higher education institutions such as the German-speaking University of Budapest and the German University in Cairo, while others are branches of German higher education institutions or are study courses run in co-operation with foreign institutions.
To date, there are 30 of these initiatives 26 of which are still being funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. 17 of these offshore programmes are being run in Asia, 5 in Eastern Europe, 3 each in the Middle East and Latin America and 2 in Africa. One of the focal points of the courses is the engineering sciences, while the rest of them are distributed among the natural, law and economic sciences as well as cultural studies and other disciplines. The average tuition fee is 2,000 euros. As a rule, teaching is in English, with a visit to Germany usually being included in the programmes. "One of the goals the projects aim at is to gain a foothold on the international education market," explains Dr. Christian Thimme, who is responsible for study programmes of German higher education institutions abroad at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). "At least some of the institutions hope that they will also be able to generate income from tuition fees in the long run. In addition, co-operation schemes open up entirely new opportunities to form joint ventures.
Frequently, firms of both partner countries are involved in curriculum development. Cultural policy motives also play a role, as is the case with the German-language study courses in Eastern Europe." The foreign partner institutions have very similar ambitions. For them, co-operation means being able to extend their study programmes and better opportunities to run joint projects with industry.
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