The universities in East Germany were reconstructed under the leadership of the Soviet Military Administration and the Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) in the aftermath of World War II. The typical feature of the Soviet model in East Germany universities was that Academy of Social Science and Academy of Science were established under the SED Central Committee independently of the university, and it is most prominently shown in the establishment of the School of Politics as an educational institution for the party members. Apart from the Ministry of Public Education (Ministerium für Volksbildung), which was in charge of elementary and secondary education, the Ministry of Higher Education (Ministerium für Hochschulwesen) with exclusive power over university education was established to place emphasis on university education. Moreover, in order to give an equal educational opportunity to all people, the Workers’ Faculty was established to give chance to the children of workers and farmers. The three-year education course of combining university education and employment activity was organized in the 1960s and it led to 25% of all university students participating in this course by the early 1970s. The features of it curriculum included required subjects of ideology education of Marxism-Leninism, Russian language, Physical Education etc. The student council, an independent organization of university students, was prohibited by law and instead, it was substituted by officialorganizations such as the university branch of the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend) linked to the SED.
The reform of universities in East Germany that started with the German unification in 1989 was implemented by abolishing the special colleges such as School of Politics and Military Academy and Technical college that lost competitiveness and by establishing a competitive University of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschule). More than 90% of the professors in the fields of humanities and social sciences with strong ideological tendencies were weeded out and in overall, 60% of all professors, 60% of researchers outside the universities, and 85% of researchers in industry were forced out.
At the time of the German unification, the number of new undergraduates occupied 16% of people of school age in East Germany and 35% in West Germany, but in 2010, the number in East German recovered up to 40~45%, the average of Germany.
The implication of the reform of universities in East Germany after the German unification for preparing the Korean unification is that above all, a gradual balanced development must be promoted through mutual exchange and approach between the South and North Koreas. For example, although a great number of professors and researchers in East Germany were forced out, we need to find the measures to share intellectual assets of South Korea with the professors and researchers in North Korean universities before the unification. Noting that the number of university students in East Germany drastically reduced after the unification, the measures to maintain a certain number of North Korean students and to help them continue their studies in the process of unification should be considered. In order to successfully accomplish these tasks, an inter-Korean exchange and cooperative system should be established in various academic fields.