University teaching is a stepchild of educational policy.

The “Innovation in University Teaching” foundation wants to counteract this.

"Freiraum 2022" is the name of a funding program with which she wants to support new didactic approaches in lecture halls, seminar rooms and laboratories.

After the call for proposals at the beginning of the year, 204 projects have now been selected.

They had been submitted by lecturers from universities, technical colleges and art colleges.

The spectrum ranges from the "escape room" in medical teaching and the "gamified learning app" for mathematics students to the "forum theater" in psychology and diversity-sensitive STEM classes to the "talent factory for sustainable action".

The selection was made by a committee made up of experts in university didactics, students and staff from ministries of science and education.

A total of 46 million euros are available for the projects.

Funding begins in July, provided that the Federal Council approves the federal budget beforehand.

Of the six hundred applications that landed first with the "Freiraum" jury, one in three was approved.

As expected, the foundation is enthusiastic about the selected projects.

Evelyn Korn, professor of economics and board member, attests to the “inspiring teaching” that “allows the students to become active designers of their learning process”.

And Joe Lockwood, member of the selection committee and "Director of Innovation" at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee, sees a "powerful space to help us foster thinking, confidence, and skills to make this world a better place".

There was no translation – the world rescue sound is fuller in English.

lack of lecturers

The funded projects certainly contain ideas that stimulate academic teaching.

But the innovation rhetoric distracts from the fact that the real problem in university teaching is not the lack of ever new didactic concepts, but the lack of lecturers.

According to federal statistics, there is an average of one teacher for every eighteen students.

However, this seemingly good numerical ratio only applies if you include all people who are somehow involved in teaching – including academic staff, lecturers and tutors.

If one singles out the professors, who are supposed to be responsible for university teaching, a completely different picture emerges: a university teacher now supervises an average of 65 students.

For decades, education policy has been celebrating the constantly growing number of students as a success, but without increasing the financial resources for the necessary staff accordingly.

The result is a continuously deteriorating support ratio.

This misery cannot be remedied by "agile methods", "augmented reality" and "blended learning" kits, nor by transferring the application, competition and third-party funding principles from research to teaching.

Basic funding for a sufficient number of lecturer positions would be necessary.

Lack of appreciation for academic teaching

The problem is not just quantitative and financial.

Despite all quality offensives, there is a lack of appreciation for academic teaching.

In the appointment process, teaching qualities are required for the sake of form, but what counts in the end is the length of the publication list and the amount of third-party funding raised.

These framework conditions mean that the importance that teachers give to teaching depends on their personal attitude.

This became particularly clear during the closure of the universities due to the pandemic: While some invested a lot of time and didactic creativity in their digital teaching events, the lockdown was just right for others: They were able to save themselves the annoying journey from their homes, which were often hundreds of kilometers away, and through virtual ones Replace narrow gauge events with a few uploaded documents.

If, against this background, your activity in the lecture hall appears to be more of an undesirable side effect than a core task of your profession, a change of perspective might do you good.

There's an innovation that could help: it's called residence obligation.