Edelgard Bulmahn

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Edelgard Bulmahn (2014)

Edelgard Bulmahn (born March 4, 1951 in Petershagen ) is a German politician ( SPD ). From 1998 to 2005 she was Federal Minister for Education and Research and from 2005 to 2009 she was Chair of the Committee on Economics and Technology of the German Bundestag . The reforms that she initiated or implemented as Minister of Education include the expansion of all-day schools , the Bologna reform and the Excellence Initiative . In the 17th electoral term she was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag. From 2013 to 2017 she was Vice President of the German Bundestag . At the end of the legislative period , it ended its parliamentary work in 2017.

Life and work

The daughter of a barge and a hairdresser switched to the Petershagen secondary school after eight years of elementary school. After graduating from high school in 1972, Edelgard Bulmahn first spent a year in the “ Bror Chailkibbutz in Israel . After that, she began a teaching degree of political science and English literature in Hannover . In 1978 she passed the first and in 1980 the second state examination for teaching at grammar schools. Since then she has worked as a teacher at the Lutherschule Hannover . Edelgard Bulmahn has been married to Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn since 1979 .

Party career and membership in parliament

Bulmahn at the state representative assembly of the Lower Saxony SPD for the 2009 federal election

Edelgard Bulmahn has been a member of the SPD since 1969 . From 1981 to 1986 she was a district councilor in the Linden-Limmer district . Since 1987 she was a member of the German Bundestag , from 1987 to 1989 deputy chairwoman of the study commission "Technology Assessment and Evaluation". Since 1991 she was a member of the executive committee of the SPD parliamentary group , from 1993 to 2011 a member of the SPD party executive committee and from 2001 to 2011 a member of the presidium of the SPD. In addition, she acted as chair of the Science Forum of Social Democracy. From 1998 to 2003 she was SPD state chairwoman in Lower Saxony .

Edelgard Bulmahn has always entered the Bundestag as a directly elected member of the Hannover II constituency . In the 2005 Bundestag election , she received 54.3% of the first votes . In the Bundestag election of 2009 it received 39.8% of the first votes, in the Bundestag election of 2013 it received 42.8% of the first votes. At the constituent session of the Bundestag on October 22, 2013, she was elected as one of the Bundestag Vice-Presidents.

From 1995 to 1996 she was chairwoman of the Committee on Education, Science, Research, Technology and Technology Assessment and from 1996 to 1998 parliamentary group spokeswoman for education and research. From 2005 to 2009 she was Chairwoman of the Economic Committee of the German Bundestag, most recently a full member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. For the general election in 2017 Bulmahn is as advertised not started again.

Federal Minister for Education and Research

Since October 27, 1998, Edelgard Bulmahn has been Federal Minister for Education and Research in the Federal Government led by Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder . After the Schröder I cabinet , she also belonged to the Schröder II cabinet .

During her tenure, she initiated fundamental reforms in the German educational and research landscape. On November 19, 2001, after two years of work, the Education Forum initiated by her, in which, for the first time, representatives from the federal and state governments also contributed to social partners, churches, parents, schoolchildren, trainees, students and academics, made 12 recommendations to reorganize the German education system. These were aimed at improving the quality of school education, guaranteeing equal opportunities, better individual support and influenced the discussion on education policy in the years that followed. Bulmahn implemented the recommendation to expand the all-day school against the fierce resistance of the Union-led countries with the investment program Future Education and Care, which is endowed with four billion euros . The Upgrading Training Assistance Act has been significantly expanded by Bulmahn with the amendment of 20 December 2001, which was reflected in rapidly increasing numbers of participants. However, their proposals for reforming the German education system that went beyond this failed due to resistance in the federal states. An understanding was only achieved with regard to the National Education Report proposed by Bulmahn. In terms of vocational training, Bulmahn's tenure saw a number of innovations, especially in information and communication technologies. The Vocational Training Act (Germany) was fundamentally amended on April 1, 2005 for the first time in 35 years. A national pact for training and the next generation of skilled workers should ensure a sufficient supply of apprenticeships.

The Federal Training Assistance Act (BAföG) was also reformed by Bulmahn. The allowances and requirement rates have been increased significantly, loan debts have been capped and the restrictions on studying abroad have been lifted. However, with the introduction of a training allowance independent of parental income, which should have combined child allowance and family-related benefits, it failed due to the objection of Federal Chancellor Schröder. She only had a short-term success with her plan to legally exclude tuition fees and to legally anchor student representation in the University Framework Act, since the Federal Constitutional Court saw this as an inadmissible interference with the legislative competence of the states. Bulmahn exerted a lasting influence on the development of the German university landscape with the expansion of the promotion of women and the promotion of young talent ( graduate college , graduate school , Emmy Noether program ), the introduction of the junior professorship , the reform of the salary of professors ( salary order W ), the Bologna reform and the excellence initiative out. A better broad promotion of the universities, which it was striving for, failed because of the states that rejected the proposed pact for universities as an encroachment on cultural sovereignty and claimed the university building for themselves.

In terms of research policy, Bulmahn set accents with the “Research for Sustainability” program, the first funding of socio-ecological research, the establishment of the German Peace Research Foundation , the development of a specific program for the New States (InnoRegio) and the expansion of health research. It broke new ground with the targeted promotion of the dialogue between science and the population within the framework of Science in Dialogue and the establishment of the Science Years . The pact for research and innovation gave the non-university research institutions and the German Research Foundation financial planning security. Overall, despite the tight budget situation, Bulmahn managed to achieve a significant increase in funds of almost 36% for the promotion of education and research. With the election of Angela Merkel as Federal Chancellor, she left office on November 22, 2005.

In retrospect, Bulmahn shows understanding for criticism of the effects of parts of the higher education reforms that fall during her term of office: Something has gotten out of balance between project financing on the one hand and basic financing on the other. In science, short-term competition and long-term planning are needed at the same time. “But if scientists only have to write applications and no longer have the strength to be creative and pursue long-term research interests, then an imbalance has arisen.” This also applies to the short-term nature of many employment relationships: “2006, shortly after the end During my term of office, what happened as a minister was that three-, five- or nine-month contracts were permitted en masse. “The big problem in the 1990s was the juxtaposition and rigidity of the individual facilities. We then broke through this so-called pillar. ”Bulmahn describes it as“ the university-political necessity of our time ”to remedy the lack of basic funding for universities with federal funds. In the design of the Bologna reform , it identifies deficits in terms of staffing levels and further training opportunities.

Further engagements

Edelgard Bulmahn was deputy chairwoman of the Friends of Nature in Germany and was a member of the Eurosolar board . She was a member of the boards of trustees of the Öko-Institut , the working group of industrial research associations "Otto von Guericke" , the Fraunhofer Society and the Volkswagen Foundation . She is also a deputy member of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Foundation. She took on further engagements as a Senator of the Lower Saxony Foundation and on the boards of the Deutsche Telekom Foundation , the German Institute for Economic Research and the Reading Foundation . She is also a member of the board of trustees of the Berghof Foundation for Conflict Research, founded by Georg Zundel , as well as deputy chairwoman of the German-American network Atlantik-Brücke e. V.

Bulmahn was involved in the Trilateral Commission in Europe and as a member of the jury for the " Top 100 innovation competition ", an award for the most innovative German medium-sized companies.

literature

  • Vera de Vries: Edelgard Bulmahn. In: Tigo Zeyen, Anne Weber-Ploemacher (eds.), Joachim Giesel (photos): 100 Hanoverian heads . CW Niemeyer Buchverlage, Hameln 2006, ISBN 3-8271-9251-X , p. 46 f.

Web links

Commons : Edelgard Bulmahn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Vera de Vries: Edelgard Bulmahn. In: Tigo Zeyen, Anne Weber-Ploemacher (eds.), Joachim Giesel (photos): 100 Hanoverian heads . CW Niemeyer Buchverlage, Hameln 2006, ISBN 3-8271-9251-X , p. 46 f.
  2. a b c "Challenged yes, overwhelmed no". All-day school, excellence initiative, Bologna reform - Edelgard Bulmahn has reformed the educational system as a minister. Now she is leaving the Bundestag. Time to take stock . In: The time . No. 38/2017, p. 80:
  3. ^ Website of the Science Forum of Social Democracy
  4. Election of the Presidium of the Bundestag
  5. People & Positions . In: Rundblick. Political journal for Lower Saxony . tape 2016 , no. 180 , October 7, 2016, p. 7 .
  6. ^ Archive of the Education Forum at the BLK
  7. BLK press release of July 29, 1999
  8. Recommendations of the Education Forum (PDF; 106 kB)
  9. ^ Spiegel Online, October 21, 2002
  10. AFBG sponsors by full-time and part-time cases, age groups and gender
  11. Edelgard Bulmahn. The national response to PISA ( memento of 23 September 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 60 kB)
  12. Der Tagesspiegel, June 26, 2002
  13. ^ Homepage of the National Education Report
  14. Joint press release of the BMBF and the KMK from March 22, 2004
  15. BMBF press release of April 8, 2005 ( Memento of August 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  16. ^ Text of the Vocational Training Act
  17. National Pact for Training and Young Skilled Workers ( Memento of May 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 29 kB)
  18. unispiegel / studies. Spiegel Online , August 23, 2002.
  19. ^ Judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court of January 26, 2005
  20. Federal-State Agreement on the University and Science Program (HWP) of December 16, 1999
  21. Berliner Zeitung of March 7, 2003
  22. Homepage of FONA (Research for Sustainable Development)
  23. ↑ Funding focus on social-ecological research
  24. Homepage Innoregio
  25. BMBF press release of November 22, 2000 ( Memento of February 22, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 25 kB)
  26. ^ Homepage of the Pact for Research
  27. Federal financial plan 2005 to 2009, p. 33 (PDF; 1.1 MB)
  28. https://www.helmut-schmidt.de/die-stiftung/kuratorium-mitarbeiterinnen/ Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung
  29. Board of Trustees. Reading Foundation, accessed May 24, 2016 .
  30. Bulmahn on the Board of Trustees of the Berghof Foundation ( Memento from July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  31. Committees of the Atlantik-Brücke e. V. ( Memento from September 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  32. ↑ List of members (PDF)
  33. Homepage of the organizer compamedia , accessed on February 2, 2016.