Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > FY2003 White Paper on Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology >Part1 Chapter4 Section5.1

The rate of students continuing to higher education in Germany is increasing more moderately than in the UK and France, with the rate being around 30 percent in the 1990s. In Germany, a vocational education system that trains meisters and other professional engineers operates in parallel to higher education. This system differs from other countries, which are expanding through incorporating vocationally oriented short-term courses into higher education, and is a factor in this moderate growth. Regarding vocational education, the government is seeking expansion by issuing scholarships.

As for higher education, the increasing number of long-term students is becoming a big problem. Various factors, including the absence of tuition fees and the severe difficulty of final examinations, are contributing to prolonging the average period of attendance to from six to seven years. It is said that the number of enrolled students is almost twice as high as capacity.

To curb the number of long-term students and make human resources cultivation more efficient, various countermeasures are being considered, including reform of the examination system and the introduction of tuition fees. Regarding final examinations, early examination taking was encouraged in 1998 with the relaxation of the limit of taking two examinations. For taking examinations early, a "trial run" system was established, wherein if the student fails, it will not count officially as one examination so long as the examination was taken early.

At the same time, Germany's education system makes it easy for adults to study. The qualification to enter university in Germany is valid for life, and therefore in principle, adults can use it to enter universities without entry selection just as younger people do. As a result, adult students over 30 years of age account for about 20 percent of German university students. In recent years, more energy has also been put into the diffusion of distance learning using the Internet. Distance education had mainly been carried out by Fern Universitat Hagen, a longstanding correspondence university. However, through focused assistance towards the development of networks at higher education institutions and the provision of distance learning programs of all higher education institutions, the federal government is supporting the diffusion of distance education.