I just got a message on the table where I don't really know whether to laugh or cry. Lachen, because tutoring for parents in things Education often necessary. And weep about how that will be implemented.

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What is “Understanding School in Germany”?

But first things first. The coordination office Further Training and Employment eV Hamburg organizes blended learning course for English-speaking parents. It is called “Understanding School in Germany”. Projects.

It is run as part of the ESF project School Mentors - Hand in hand for strong schools, a cooperation between the KWB coordination office Further Training and employment e. V. and the Hamburg Authority for Schools and Vocational Training (BSB).

Objective and process

Objective of the course is to provide parents with applicable basic knowledge about everyday school life and the transition to professional life.

The course is as follows: The content, exercises and discussions take place in presence workshops and on the digital learning platform Blackboard Learn.

The claim behind it

The claim of the project is indeed praiseworthy, because, as one has rightly recognized, education is an important aspect of the integration. And the students need the support of their parents. This is what the press release says:

Why is daycare so important? How can my child grow up multilingual? What happens after school? The “Understanding School in Germany” course answers these and many other questions for parents who have not gone through the German school system themselves Ask. Mothers and fathers from the countries of origin Afghanistan, Ghana, Iran, Nigeria, Peru, Russia, Turkey and the Ukraine have already taken the course successfully completed. Due to popular demand, it will start in English for the first time on March 18, 2015!

The project reaches the wrong

The language aspect is an aspect that bothers me about this matter: To reach the parents, where theseCourses are really necessary, one should hold theCourses in the respective country language.

Or how many of the Migrants-Parents from so-called educationally disadvantaged backgrounds speak English? So the project does not reach those who really need it, but those who are already actively trying to get their children educated.

Participants as mentors?

But apparently there was no such thing Money there. Because in fact one has apparently also thought about it and the following Solution found:

The participating parents should act as honorary mentors or multipliers and pass on the information from theCourses in their language of origin to other parents. That functions in my experience probably only in individual cases.

Digital competency for all!

Another one Problem I see: TheCourses take place on a digital learning platform. That would also many German parents with a lack of digital Expertise overwhelm. Perhaps courses in digital competence should be given first.

In general, that would be brilliant Idea in the digitally developing country of Germany: digital competence for parents and teachers. But do we have enough teachers for that?

Digital educational institutions

Basti Hirsch, born in 1983, is an education activist / journalist / entrepreneur and lives in Berlin. Here in the video he explains it Concept the hands-on school that corresponds to the Web 2.0 idea.

Basti Hirsch studied Integrated Social Sciences (ISS) at Jacobs University in Bremen. After participating in the educational expedition through Germany in 2009, he was on a five-week educational expedition through the USA in 2010. Especially active on Twitter.

From UniLeaks to university watch

On the other hand, a project went online some time ago, which in my opinion was long overdue: examples of questionable influences by the Economy such as the Aldi lecture hall at the Würzburg University of Applied Sciences or an endowed professorship funded by the energy industry.

The only question is whether the interlocking of the economy is not already seen far too normal and also too positively to give this project the necessary Resonance to bring.

Who funds science?

I have on best of myself HR - Berufebilder.de® has reported several times on such examples, such as the university campus in the Egyptian holiday paradise of El Gouna, whereCourses are also financed by the Egyptian economy.

Or through the Queb association, which wants to sponsor courses and complains openly in a press release about the lack of a say in the topic and demands discounts.

Interlinking business and teaching - flop or top?

However, when I look at some of today's students like this, I have the impression that they do not find such interlocking bad: after all, a student explained to me just this week how great it was to be able to make contacts and gain insights so early in Companys gets. And for them ProfessorThe thing is practical in two respects. Or?

I am all the more pleased that Hochschulwatch has now been launched jointly by the taz, the anti-corruption organization Transparency International Deutschland eV and the fzs (free association of student bodies).

college watch

How to participate?

ProfessorInside, lecturers, employees and students at universities are now invited to fill the portal with cases and information on where the lecture halls become advertising space and where there are non-transparent contracts, such as at the University of Cologne, which signed a contract with Bayer Healthcare AG Has completed funding for cancer and heart research and is stubbornly keeping it under lock and key.

For every University there is a wiki entry that can also be accessed via the map. The readers can edit the entries and you Background about cooperations between individual universities and companies.

From UniLeaks to university watch

The website is moderated by editors of the daily newspaper. The project “University watch. MachtWirtschaftUni ”is for one year. The website is now activated:

As early as 2011, under the heading “Uni-Leaks”, taz had asked its readers to name any peculiarities in the cooperation between science and business and found that the economization of universities was progressing.