Last updated 5. March 2025 | Sprecherinnen

Update 10.12.2020:

[ENDLICH] the non-credit of the semester or the extension of the standard period of study was decided by the Lower Saxony State Parliament. This means that every student who studied in SoSe 20, WS 20/21 or SoSe 21 [hat] will be granted an extension of the standard period of study of one semester in total. How exactly this will be implemented at our university will be clarified in the next few days – we will keep you up to date! Although we are pleased that this decision has finally been made, we are of the opinion that, firstly, it comes far too late and, secondly, the extent is too small, as at least WS 20/21 is just as challenging a situation for students as SoSe 20.

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21.09.2020

After long discussions, motions and demonstrations, the Science Committee in Lower Saxony has FINALLY spoken out in favor of non-recognition of the 2020 summer semester. Below you can read the press release of the state ASten conference:

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we as a nationwide student representation have supported the demands of the Solidarity Semester Alliance (1). The universities’ teaching offerings, some of which were planned prematurely and often without a far-reaching digitalization strategy, could not cushion all the challenges for everyday university life. The fact that lecturers did their best under these conditions is to be appreciated, but even they were often unable to cope with the new didactic challenges, which is why many lecturers launched the petition of the non-semester student (2) at the beginning of the pandemic. Over 15,000 signatures have now been collected. They rightly feared, as did the nationwide student association (fzs), that universities were not well enough prepared to start this semester.

Other problems also arose; for example, not all examinations from the previous winter semester could be completed, resulting in a double burden for many students. despite this petition, teaching resumed on April 20 at the latest, or continued at the universities on March 16. At this point, however, it would have been important and right to meet the demands for a special classification of the semester. At the very least, the non-recognition of the previous summer semester remains an essential demand.

Parallel to teaching, the universities and colleges tried to counteract the emerging challenges, but it was left to the respective universities individually to decide how to implement the various measures In the last semester, the following challenges have arisen, among others, whether it was the connection problems with the video conferencing tools, the urgently needed training with the online tools or the provision of literature in closed libraries.

Despite the efforts, both employees and students, who now had to look after their children at home due to the closure of the daycare center, were additionally burdened at the beginning of the pandemic. Students were also involved to varying degrees: At some locations, they were actively invited to committees and crisis meetings, while at other locations the needs and demands of the student body were marginalized or ignored.

Not to be forgotten is the switch to working from home, usually without a provided device and often with poor internet connections (according to the LAK study, 44% of students), where people in small apartments and shared apartments in particular found it difficult to find a place to work and study. The long-term consequences of continuous video conferencing and frequent screen viewing are yet to come (as research by Axel Kuhn from the Reading Research Network shows [3]), but even so, the psychological stress and isolation of many of those affected increased.

As a result of these different ways in which the universities have come to terms with the situation, we now see an even unfair distribution: while students at one university were able to start the online semester without any problems, the switch to online teaching (didactically and technically) went smoothly, compensatory measures for home-learning existed, offers such as libraries or workshops were accessible or they were provided with technical equipment, other universities emerge as educational losers. These are the universities that could not or did not want to switch to online teaching; where the presence of the students is necessary for the course, whose teaching cannot be substituted (as is the case with internships), whose teaching staff and students are overwhelmed by the situation in many respects, who were not provided with technical equipment and who simply ignored the problems of the students. This gap is so wide that for some law universities the semester is already no longer credited (4), while we have to fight for every concession! 3 In addition to these challenges, the loss of additional income, e.g. from temporary jobs in the catering industry or job cuts where full-time positions are maintained as opposed to temporary student positions, has created a financial burden that has still not been effectively counteracted.

For all these challenges, we sent a letter to the Ministry on April 30th together with the student representatives in the senates (5), which has still not been answered. In this letter, we make demands on federal policy, but also specific demands for studying in Lower Saxony. After a conversation with Minister President Weil, we received a second letter and then a reply from the
Science Minister on June 23rd, almost two months after our first letter. Prior to this, we had already demonstrated in front of the state parliament on 8 June and then even nationwide on 20 June. Despite these gatherings and multiple contacts, it was only on 28 August, after registering our second nationwide solidarity semester demonstration, that we were able to secure a meeting with the MWK. This took place without Minister Thümler, but it was still possible to discuss the situation of female students for the first time – four months after the start of this particularly challenging semester.

We hope that the demands of the students of Lower Saxony will finally be heard by the government and that the long, agonizing perseverance of the students, who had to endure months of improvised teaching and felt abandoned by politicians, was not in vain. Waiting until 2021 would not be sustainable in view of the situation and the implementation of the solidarity semester demands in 11 federal states and thus already for 85% of female students throughout Germany (6). We therefore welcome this motion by the Greens: the fact that the extension of the standard period of study should only be a one-off cannot be proportionate in view of the changing circumstances caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the plans for a hybrid semester and the lack of closures of university locations due to corona outbreaks so far, the possibility of the semester not being credited again cannot be completely ruled out.

Support in digital teaching is still needed and we share the concerns of the application, but the financial resources from the BMBF and the loans are not sufficient help. Our criticism here is based on the needs assessment, which only takes effect if the account balance is less than €500, and on the difficulties that arose during the online application process.

Due to the ongoing rental costs, health insurance contributions and meals, as well as the partial purchase of new technical equipment (according to the LAK study, 30% of students in Lower Saxony had to buy new technology), the €500 rule is of a level that can hardly or not at all cover these costs.

We continue to demand the opening of BAföG (for all)! The evaluation of the bridging aid applications has shown that almost 40% were rejected, yet many of them are in need (7). The emergency aid funds of the Studentenwerke before Ms. Karliczek’s restrictions were more effective and should only have been topped up and not changed in the means test.

In order to get a closer look at the experiences of female students in Lower Saxony and to gather their wishes and concerns for the upcoming hybrid winter semester, we have conducted a nationwide survey of over 2,300 female students at colleges and universities in Lower Saxony (8) and would like to enter into a discourse with them in order to find a common solution. So far, only a consultation with the LHK is planned within the application, which means that the female students cannot be included in the process. As already mentioned, there have been and still are communication difficulties with the Ministry of Science and Culture. We would therefore like to see female students included in the discussions as a state-wide student representation (LAK).