German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/165,
pp. 21235-21237.
Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.
The Bologna process is, in the essentials, the attempt of an
all-European unification, standardization and bureaucratization of higher
education, thus the exact opposite of the variety and freedom which you always
carry before you like a monstrance.
Kai Gehring (Greens): You’ve already
said that a thousand times!
Ria Schröder
(FDP): That is nonsense!
In the past 25 years the variety of the European education
traditions was ever further leveled. The Humboldt-type university, with the unity
of teaching and research, the ideal of humanist education,
Kai Gehring (Greens): And you learn
nothing of that! Humboldt would turn over in his grave at your speech! Who was
so very open-minded! An authentic cosmopolite!
was replaced by the guiding form of a tutelary, technocratic
knowledge factory [das Leitbild einer
verschulten, technokratischen Wissenfabrik], Herr Gehring.
Kai Gehring
(Greens): Humboldt was a cosmopolite!
The essence of European higher education is endangered by
the Bologna process. – That is written by no less than Julian Nida-Rümeln. And
you all, as rotating governing parties up to now, are responsible for that.
Kai Gehring
(Greens): And may you never come into government!
It was desired to achieve comparability of conclusion of
studies and a higher mobility between European universities. Neither has been
made by Bologna, and the improvements were at most alloted. And at what price? The abolition of the
internationally honored German Diploma-Ingenieurs,
the Meisters – completely without
necessity – instead, the introduction of bachelor and masters courses of study,
the modulization of studies, and the fixation on the ECTS [European Transfer
and Accumulation System] performance points have trained the students in a
tutelary gathering of points. Independent [eigenständige]
search for truth is penalized rather than rewarded. The conformity pressure today
is enormous in German universities. The “freedom” science year cannot divert from
that.
Kai Gehring
(Greens): Says a Herr Doktor!
And this pressure to conform is thoroughly reinforced in
that 80 percent of scholars [Wissenschaftler]
in Germany are employed per term. They are dependent on external funds which
the universities, since Bologna, need to additionally raise because their basic
financing was reduced.
Laura Kraft
(Greens): Since when did that interest the AfD?
Kai Gehring (Greens): Yet you
always put budget motions which place entire courses of study at zero! Ever the
same nonsense!
And who pays, purchases, ladies and gentlemen. For a great
part, that is the state with its lead ideologies: Man-made climate change,
diversity, gender, etc.
Ria Schröder (FDP): The only ones who
ever again want to limit scholarly freedom are you!
Young scholars who, for example, want to research the
natural factors of climate change, or who do not salute the Gessler’s cap of
gender dogma, can similarly bend their careers; simply no corresponding
research proposals will be presented.
Kai Gehring
(Greens): That appears to be a therapeutic problem!
The result is the policy of a compliant supply system of
knowledge, as we needed to bitterly experience in the Corona times, and as was
brought to light, at the latest, in the RKI files. Under political pressure, the
Robert Koch Institute largely neglected data and facts, and furnished the
absurd and harmful Corona preventive measures with the blessings of science.
Johannes
Fechner (SPD): Such nonsense! That’s just not right! Such rubbish!
Kai Gehring (Greens): Did China write
the speech for you? Does the speech come from Russia Today or from Chinese
spies?
This may not remain without consequences. We will in that
connection still debate. Our alarm clocks sound
Kai Gehring (Greens): With your
speeches, our alarm clocks sound! China and Russia propaganda!
when in the Federal government’s report there is talk of “common
values” which should form the “foundation of cooperation” in the area of
European universities, and which now shall be increasingly examined in the
universities.
Kai Gehring
(Greens): Your doctorate should be examined!
I recall that a young researcher was not allowed to make an
address on the biological duality of the sexes at the Berlin Humboldt
University because this allegedly contradicted the values of the university.
Ria Schröder (FDP): What exactly
has that to do with Bologna? I still do not understand that!
Kai Gehring
(Greens): Who actually? When and where?
The orientation of values begets attitude [Gesinnung] instead of knowledge, because
cannot be what is not allowed to be [weil
nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf]. That is highly dangerous, valued
colleagues.
Alexander
Föhr (CDU/CSU): What now has that to do with the Bologna process?
Read Professor Nida-Rümelin:
Kai Gehring
(Greens): Do you still speak of Europe?
“The instrumentalization of
academia by state, clerical and business purposes has continually blocked the
innovation potential of science.”
That exactly so applies for supposed values of democracy.
The fight against the right in the name of science, which the president of the
Berlin Technical University now calls for, while there the lecture halls decay
and the level ever further sinks, undermines science as a supra-party resort [überparteiliche Instanz].
Kai Gehring
(Greens): That you cite the NZZ [Neue Zürcher Zeitung] is clear!
Lukas
Köhler (FDP): Lack of theme!
I come to conclusion. What we need is a reform of the
Bologna reform: Away from the tutelage and bureaucracy and EU control; instead,
a Humboldt for the 21st Century!
Many thanks!
Holger Mann
(SPD): What rubbish!
[trans: tem]