THE STRUCTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN GERMANY IN THE LIGHT OF THE LAW ON HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
The Federal Republic of Germany is a country with a federal structure, and the Basic Law of 1949, which provides in Article 30 sovereignty of federal states in matters of higher education. The Federation established in the framework act the overall structure of higher education. Different regulations in German federal states concern for example: teaching time, rules of admission and tuition fees, and the rules regarding the course of studies to the extent permitted by the Bologna process. The activity of higher education institutions is to carry out their tasks relating to science, research, teaching, training of future generations of scientists and attention to gender equality — they are continually evaluated. Currently, higher education has undergone a number of reforms to strengthen the competitiveness of German science in the world, abolish habilitation requirement, lower the age criterion for obtaining the title of professor, determine the teaching load of the academic staff, and to take action to support students and researchers bringing up children through the extention of the time for obtaining professional qualifications, strengthening the autonomy of universities for example, by granting them independence in the appointment of professors and the democratization of the decision-making processes by requiring the representation of different groups of representatives of university staff in decision-making bodies.