Europäisches Zentrum für Föderalismus-Forschung

Beiträge zum deutschen Föderalismus

Bildungspolitik als föderativer Streitpunkt: Die Auseinandersetzung um die Verteilung bildungspolitischer Zuständigkeiten in der Bundesstaatskommission

Ursula Münch

S. 150-162

One of the main reasons why the members of the joint Bundestag and Bundesrat Committee on Modernising the Federal System of Germany couldn't agree on joint proposals was that they didn't find a solution how to organize the competences in the areas of education and research. Since the disappointing results of the PISA study for Germany, politicians had discovered the public interest in education. Social Democrats and greens as well as conservatives started to compete not only in the question whether all-day schools might be a remedy but also how to achieve internationally outstanding results in scientific research. On the other hand two Federal Framework Acts for Higher Education introducing junior professorships and establishing a ban on tuition fees for first-degree studies where declared unconstitutional by the Federal Constitutional Court. These decisions supported the position of the Länder in the committee: being interested in strengthening the influence of the Länder in their main field of competence, they were not willing to accept the proposals of the Bundestag and Federal Government, claiming that today's and tomorrow's challenges increase the need for federal initiatives in this field.
In the first sessions of the committee, agreement on a very general level of discussion seemed possible. But the more detailed the problems became, the more difficulties arose: the members developed very different opinions toward the question how the existing Joint Tasks of Art. 91 a, b Basic Law should be distributed. Esp. conservative governed Länder pledged for allocating the competence for extension and construction of institutions of higher education to the Länder level. While this might have been a suggestion for the federal level to agree on, the delegates couldn't find a solution for the financial aspects of such an arrangement. Another problem was the rearrangement of competencies of the existing framework legislation of Art. 75 sect. 1a Basic Law: The delegates of the Bundestag and the Federal Government insisted on maintaining influence on the regulation of the admission of students, of the quality standards and of the exams. Such a compromise wouldn't have really differed from the present framework legislation. The most difficult issue was delayed until the final meeting of delegates: The delegates of the Federation didn't want to give up the chance of cooperation in educational planning and in the promotion of institutions and projects of scientific research of supra-regional importance (Art. 91b).
Full or nearly full competencies on the field of education and research seemed to be very important for the Länder, since they wanted to achieve a balance for their willingness to reduce the quota of consent bills requiring the approval of the Bundesrat. The question whether the Federation or the Länder are winner or losers of the failure of the Committee on Modernising the Federal System is yet undeterminable.

Zitiervorschlag für diesen Artikel:
Münch, Ursula 2005: Bildungspolitik als föderativer Streitpunkt: Die Auseinandersetzung um die Verteilung bildungspolitischer Zuständigkeiten in der Bundesstaatskommission, in: Europäisches Zentrum für Föderalismus-Forschung (Hrsg.): Jahrbuch des Föderalismus 2005. Föderalismus, Subsidiarität und Regionen in Europa, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, S. 150-162.