Would you like to know where Germany is most international? Visit a German university.
For example, the Campus Westend of the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Because it is relatively new and the pale travertine of the buildings shines on sunny days as if the complex were located on the American west coast. Because the Goethe University celebrates its 100-year anniversary in 2014.
Most of all, though, because Frankfurt currently has the most foreign students of the 20 most attended German universities: 6,533 students of a total of 42,111 have a non-German passport. Go visit the cafeteria, listen to the sound of voices in a multitude of languages. You will hear English, French, Arabic, Chinese and, of course, German. Amongst other languages. At the counter you will find turkey breast cooked in the Portuguese manner, chop suey, soya nuggets and Turkish vegetable goulash. Welcome to the global village.
Frankfurt is a good example for the change that has transformed the German university landscape over the course of the past years. "We want to become Harvard on the Main river" is the motto in Frankfurt. A statement that is a metaphor for the claim this university shares with other German universities: excellence and internationality.
A conceptual pair that by no means is limited to the major universities or the eleven universities in Aachen, Berlin, Bremen, Dresden, Cologne, Heidelberg, Tübingen, Constance and Munich that were awarded the seal of "University of Excellence" in a competition for the best universities.
Internationalisation is a topic that drives all German universities. 300,900 foreign students were enrolled at German universities in the winter semester 2013/2014; this corresponds to 11.5 per cent of the total number of students.
By now, Germany ranks eighth in the list of the most popular countries to study in, after the USA and the United Kingdom. The mode of teaching has likewise become international. Almost 90 per cent of university courses have been adapted to the bachelor and master degrees common in most countries.
The German diploma and magister increasingly are titles of the past. The more than 6,000 bachelor and 5,000 master programmes include about a thousand English language programmes as well as some in French, Italian and Chinese. Numerous structured post-graduate programmes and graduate schools target also top-performers from abroad.
Moreover, a glance at the statistics by the German Rectors' Conference reveals that 394 German universities of applied sciences and universities maintain co-operation projects with international universities. That makes pretty much all of them, for Germany is home to a total of 423 universities. And this is not just about one or two projects per university.
The University of Freiburg leads with 554 international co-operation projects, closely followed by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the University of Heidelberg. 16 universities maintain more than 400 partnership projects, another ten maintain between 300 and 400. These are only the tips of the iceberg of education partnerships.
"Just like us, more and more countries become aware that scientific excellence can only be achieved by co-operation", says Professor Joybrato Mukherjee, President of the University of Gießen. The son of migrants from India is Vice-President of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the worldwide largest funding organisation for the exchange of students and scientists.
In 2013 alone, the DAAD funded visits abroad for almost 70,000 German and 50,000 foreign students and researchers. Mukherjee is convinced that the DAAD's internationalisation and funding programmes have their share in the fact that today many international studies document the appeal of the German university system.
Germany does not view the internationalisation of education as a "one-way road". The Research and Academic Relations Initiative launched already in Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's first term of office has introduced many new aspects of exchange with the promotion of academic partnerships, German Houses of Science and Innovation and centres of excellence – quite consciously also in regions undergoing transformation and suffering from conflict.
In addition, numerous German universities take part in the development of German university courses and the establishment of German-style universities abroad which exist in Egypt, China, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Oman, Singapore, Hungary, Vietnam and, since 2014, in Turkey. Also, a declared goal supported by numerous programmes is the fact that by 2020 half of all German students ought to gain experience abroad. Currently, about 30 per cent spend time abroad.
What the German universities have been increasingly practising for about a decade with their export of study courses abroad, has been a core task of the German schools abroad from the start: they are synonymous with excellent education "Made in Germany".
Approximately 20,000 German and 60,000 non-German students study at the 14 German schools abroad worldwide. At the same time, the PASCH partner school initiative, co-ordinated by the German Federal Foreign Office, weaves a much denser network of students of German, providing young people abroad with access to the German language and education.
The first choice of school graduates in Germany who choose not to study usually falls on the mainstay of the German education system: a dual system vocational education and training programme. Dual denotes the combination of two to three and a half years of practical training in a company and the parallel theoretical education at a vocational college.
The dual vocational education and training system according to the German model has likewise developed into a successful education export.
The format is regarded as a remedy against youth unemployment that is so rampant in Europe, yet which is at a low rate in Germany. In addition to European Union (EU) countries, China, India, Russia and countries in South America likewise show interest in this vocational training model.
In total, Germany has concluded 40 bilateral co-operation agreements in the field of vocational education and training. Often, the implementation involves the German embassies, chambers of commerce abroad and German businesses.
The fact that the German federal government currently is investing more than ever before in education and research is yet further proof for the high value placed on the topics of education and science in Germany.
The 2014 budget has increased to more than EUR 14 billion – EUR 313 million more than in 2013. "We have become a top-class country for education and research", says Johanna Wanka, German Federal Minister for Education and Research.
In their coalition agreement, the government parties CDU/CSU and SPD have agreed to increase the federal government's education expenses by an additional EUR 6 billion by 2017. The additional funds are intended to relieve the federal states, which carry the main responsibility for education in Germany, and make more money available for investments in schools and universities.
Many challenges remain alongside the pride in good systems and a successful launch into internationalisation: the integration of migrants and the permeability of the education system for children from socially disadvantaged families, the expansion of the day schools and the question whether to have 12 or 13 years of school before graduating with a university entrance qualification.
There is plenty to discuss with regards to education and plenty of reasons for decision makers in the German education system to develop an international awareness and to see what solutions other countries have come up with regarding these issues.
Which brings us back to the main topic: without exchange we all are the poorer.