In Germany, scientific and professional bodies acting on behalf of the state have traditionally mediated between the academic and professional sectors in order to keep academia and the commercial sector separate. Now, independent accreditation agencies certify BA and MA courses according to market-based criteria. The result of the exposure of German universities to purely economic demands will, like elsewhere, be an increasing hierarchization of educational institutions.
Richard Münch
(b.1945) is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of Die akademische Elite [The academic elite], Frankfurt a.M. 2006.
