Lonely and silent: students in the pandemic |Journals for German and international politics

2022-07-15 22:31:27 By :

Image: Tired student sleeping on books in the library (IMAGO / YAY Images)The window to the university has been made of tiled glass for two years now.A mosaic of names and faces, blurry and distant, available at any video conference.The pandemic has fundamentally changed student life in Germany and at the same time pushed it into obscurity.The Free Association of Student Unions (fzs) recently tried to sharpen the picture.In a survey, the association found out that there are worries behind most of the stained glass windows.[1]The result of the fzs is worrying: Not only do 49 percent of the students surveyed look at the current semester with bad to very bad feelings.But the problems go far beyond the course: 62 percent of the 7,600 respondents feel depressed, 73 percent suffer from concentration problems, 41 percent from insomnia.And also the bodies are on strike.More than half complained of headaches and backaches, and eye pain tormented more than a third of those surveyed.Although the survey was widely distributed, it is not representative.Those who lacked the strength or nerves did not take part.The number of unreported complaints is therefore likely to be high.Such drastic alarm signals should long since have been heard beyond the digital lecture halls.And yet they are not heard even in their own ranks.The reason: Compared to neighboring countries, there were few protests from local students against the corona measures imposed at the universities.Instead, they tried to adapt, contain the pandemic and manage their own suffering.As has now been shown, it is not uncommon to go beyond the limits of resilience.A summary of the past two years shows how it came to this.It should be anticipated: A simple criticism of the measures does not go far enough as an explanation.March 2020: This new type of virus, which is throwing the life we ​​have known up to now off course, was hardly foreseeable.However, the precariousness of those who will be hit particularly hard by the virus was known in advance.As for the homeless, people affected by racism, single parents, the working poor and people with disabilities, the corona crisis is also becoming an existential crisis for many students within a very short time.The universities react quickly and rely on comprehensive contact reduction: The start of the summer semester is postponed.In the time gained, digital infrastructures are expanded and curricula are converted to digital formats.[2]The teaching program is narrower everywhere, the process gets stuck in many places and is not perfect.But what is perfect in a crisis?The assumption that the measures taken basically ensure that all learners are able to study is much more devastating.This article is from the April 2022 issue. Click here for the table of contents for this issue.Isolation, loneliness and worry are all-pervasive at this time.Vulnerability is problematized, but nobody really knows how to counteract it.Mental health is becoming a bigger issue than ever, but how to maintain it remains a crucial question.But one thing is undisputed: existential fears endanger them.During this time, many students lost their income without replacement, as did subsidized offers from libraries, copy shops and canteens.At the same time, a fully equipped home office is required - regardless of income and living situation.To this day there is no reliable information about how many people drop out of their studies during this time, lose their home or fall by the wayside.Because if you don't make it, you become invisible.But even those who somehow keep their heads above water don't get any attention.Their suffering is based on a devastating misconception: either students come from economically strong (academic) families or they receive student loans at the maximum rate.There is no current study that could clear up this false assumption.However, according to the student survey of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), as early as 2016, only half of the students were mainly financed by their parents and only 12 percent by Bafög.A quarter was already working while studying to earn a living.[3]And for the other two groups, too, their own additional earnings are becoming increasingly important.How students without Bafög, wealthy parents, savings or a scholarship will survive until June 2020 is and remains a mystery.Because only then - three months after the start of the pandemic - does the BMBF announce bridging aid.Anyone who has less than 500 euros in their account and who can be shown to have gotten into this financial emergency as a result of the pandemic is eligible to apply.This means that the monthly income can be increased – to a maximum of 500 euros each time.One problem with this is that anyone who has borrowed money in order not to starve or to be fired by the landlord is unlucky - because according to the BMBF there is no need.Maybe next month.A second problem that will also exist in the next month: A room in a shared apartment costs an average of 400 euros in the first two years of the pandemic, up to 100 euros more in Hamburg and Berlin, and even 650 euros in Munich.Student health insurance from the age of 25 is more than 110 euros with most insurers.Even without listing other items essential for survival, it is obvious: 500 euros are not enough to live on in most cases.When the pandemic situation eased somewhat in the second half of 2020, hardly any companies would spend money on new student workers.The room for maneuver of the students affected by poverty is becoming smaller and smaller: According to a study by the German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW), 23 percent of the students lived with their parents in the semester before the pandemic.In the 2020 summer semester, the proportion increased by nine percentage points.[4]And if you believe the fzs survey, another 8 percent are still toying with the idea of ​​giving up their own apartment and moving back into their parents' house.The last resort is debt - and that is funded by the BMBF.It advertises interest-free student loans from the Reconstruction Loan Corporation (KfW).The number of KfW loans applied for quadrupled from the first to the third quarter of 2020. The small print states that there will be no interest until October 2022. The institution cannot yet say how high the interest rate will be after that.However, it is likely that it will affect most newcomers, as the average repayment period is eleven years.But this opens up another financial trap.Such stresses are certainly one of the reasons why more and more students switch off their webcams during online events, push exams and the number of final theses decreases noticeably over the course of the months.The conversion of teaching to digital offers does not seem to be a central problem at first.According to the study “Stu.diCo.- Studying digitally in times of Corona"[5], students rate the new forms of digital learning very mixed: time savings due to no longer having to travel to the place of study, flexibility in work design and getting to know new digital offers are on the plus side.What is striking, however, is that 72 percent of those surveyed rated the workload in the digital semester as higher, which led half of those surveyed to consider extending their studies.Outside of the classroom, things look particularly bleak.Almost all respondents lack social and cultural exchange.79 percent miss campus life, more than 85 percent miss contact with other students.Everything easy about studying has vanished since the pandemic.What weighs is the hard work alone at home and the general insecurity that prevails at this time.And yet the consequences cannot be reduced to one clear statement.People are different and live in different circumstances, not just financially.The study takes up the voices of those students who can work more efficiently than ever before and those who have lost their enjoyment of studying.However, it also shows that more than half of the students are already suffering from mental health problems by mid-2020.However, students who are at the end of their strength or who have long since dropped out of their studies have already been overlooked.However, the various surveys agree on one point: the crisis is having the effect of increasing social inequality.It hits those most in need of support the hardest.Because it radicalizes the mechanisms of poverty: poverty means additional work.Poverty breeds fear.Poverty makes you sick.The situation has improved in the summer of 2021: thanks to testing options and vaccinations, normal life seems within reach.Students are more willing to vaccinate than the general population.A wind of confidence is also blowing on many campuses: canteens and libraries are open under new precautions, some events are taking place in attendance.Mandatory internships, unthinkable in the meantime and yet part of the study regulations, are also possible again more often.The results of the follow-up study Stu.diCo II are all the more shocking: One year after the first survey, the proportion of students with mental health problems has risen from 55 to 66 percent.More than three quarters feel exhausted at the end of a day of study.For the most part, there is still a lack of conversations with fellow students, social life outside of everyday student life and, above all, direct contact with the teachers.[6]It has been proven that students from working-class families suffer particularly: They rarely have access to an undisturbed workplace.The mental stress is higher.An extension of the study period, the end of the bridging aid or a loan seem more threatening if there is no financial support.The concerns are more complex.And at that time no one reckoned with Omicron.Fortunately, there are students who got through the pandemic well.Some have completed their master's degree without ever having sat in a lecture hall or danced at a class party.But there are also very many to whom the former does not apply.The pandemic is an exceptional situation that made exceptional regulations necessary from the start.The low level of protest and the high vaccination rate show that students have basically understood and accepted this fact.Universities seemed more flexible in their restructuring than schools or some health departments.Lecturers adopted new forms of teaching, although many of them were in precarious situations themselves, as #IchbinHanna[7] or the Gender Publication Gap show.[8]Psychological counseling centers for students also worked on the attack.In many places they are still overloaded.The pandemic years have caused many cracks, spawned damage and shattered structures.Seeing these problems clearly is a first step, but it is essential to then look inquiringly at the causes, because these go beyond the pandemic itself.In the case of the students, a very fundamental dilemma was revealed: there was and is no current data on financing and living conditions that can be used as a basis for political decisions.Aids were designed to have frightening conditions attached to them.While lateral thinkers shaped the public and political discourse for months, students who had changed their entire lives during the pandemic slipped unseen into a downward spiral.This story of the students in Germany once again illustrates a principle that this pandemic is threatening to manifest: those who take a step back will be overlooked.Is that a principle we want to live by?[1] Cf. free association of student bodies (fzs), results: How are you?Nationwide student survey 2021/22, www.fzs.de.According to a survey by the German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Research (DZHW), ten percent of students stated that they were mentally impaired in 2020 - after seven percent in 2016 and three percent in 2012, www.forschung-und-lehre.de, February 23, 2021.[2] Cf. Pia Stendera, Studying on credit: Corona and the academic divide, in: “Blätter”, 8/2020, pp. 9-12.[3] Cf. Elke Middendorff et al., The economic and social situation of students in Germany 2016. 21st Social Survey of the German Student Union, Bonn and Berlin 2017, www.dzhw.eu.[4] Cf. Karsten Becker and Markus Lörz, Studying during the corona pandemic: The financial situation of students and possible effects on their studies, in: "DZHW Brief", 9/2020, www.dzhw.eu.[5] Anna Traus et al., Stu.diCo.- Study digitally in times of Corona, Hildesheim 2020, https://hildok.bsz-bw.de.[6] Cf. Besa Kris-Stephen et al., Stu.diCo.II - The corona pandemic from the perspective of students - First results of the nationwide study Stu.diCo II, Hildesheim 2021, https://hildok.bsz-bw.de.[7] Cf. Amrei Bahr, Kristin Eichhorn and Sebastian Kubon, #IchBinHanna: Doctorate, habilitated, no prospects, in: “Blätter”, 8/2021, pp. 21-24.[8] Cf. Alessandra Rusconi, Nicolai Netz and Heike Solga, Publishing in Lockdown.Experiences of professors, in: "WZB-Mitteilungen", 170/2020, pp. 24-26.In the July issue, David Wallace-Wells examines the causes of the global hunger crisis, which has been dramatically exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.Dirk Messner asks how a turning point can also succeed in global climate policy - and how Europe has to rethink it.Claus Leggewie and Herfried Münkler discuss whether the West should rely on regime change in relation to Putin.Hans-Jürgen Urban sees the German debate about the Ukraine war in a spiral of moral outrage.In view of the Russian aggression, Klaus Naumann calls for a new definition of preparedness.And in the deadlocked Syrian conflict, Kristin Helberg is pleading for humanitarian aid that alleviates the suffering of the people without strengthening the Assad regime.In the July issue, David Wallace-Wells examines the causes of the global hunger crisis, which has been dramatically exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.Dirk Messner asks how a turning point can also succeed in global climate policy - and how Europe has to rethink it.Claus Leggewie and Herfried Münkler discuss whether the West should rely on regime change in relation to Putin.Hans-Jürgen Urban sees the German debate about the Ukraine war in a spiral of moral outrage.In view of the Russian aggression, Klaus Naumann calls for a new definition of preparedness.And in the deadlocked Syrian conflict, Kristin Helberg is pleading for humanitarian aid that alleviates the suffering of the people without strengthening the Assad regime.According to estimates, food poverty affects at least five percent of the people in Germany.It's worth taking a closer look - especially at the tangible consequences.Image: Recruits on the occasion of the 66th anniversary of the founding of the Bundeswehr in front of Villa Hammerschmidt in Bonn, November 12, 2021 (IMAGO / Future Image)Beyond the great media attention, a momentous change has taken place at the Helmut Schmidt University (HSU) in Hamburg: The university was originally founded to ensure the civilian, publicly anchored, academic part of the training of those "citizens in uniform" who wanted to pursue an officer's career strive.But now, according to the Federal Ministry of Defence, it is to become a "military security area".Image: Table of a school child with COVID-19 antigen test kit, March 12, 2021 (IMAGO / MiS)Families have been bearing a large part of the burden since the beginning of the corona crisis - and are now looking forward to an autumn and winter, the corona rashes of which will again hit them hardest along with the hospital staff.The Federal Training Assistance Act (BAföG) was passed 50 years ago.But there is no reason to celebrate.Because there can no longer be any talk of sufficient support for students today.by Amrei Bahr, Kristin Eichhorn, and Sebastian KubonFinally, precarious working conditions in science have come into the focus of the broader public.The starting point was the Twitter hashtag #IchBinHanna, which we initiated at the beginning of June.»An island of reason in a sea of ​​nonsense« Karl Barth © Blatter Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 2022