For the 181 students at Robert Bosch College in Freiburg im Breisgau, Christmas shopping in local retail stores will be flat this year. In order to enable the young people to travel home during the Christmas holidays, Rector Laurence Nodder has categorically forbidden them to visit Freiburg city center. With this drastic measure, the boarding school wants to protect the students from corona infections with subsequent mandatory quarantine.
For many of these young people, the journey home on vacation can take a whole day or even longer: As with all of them to the foundation of the United World Colleges (UWC) belonging to upper school boarding schools, three out of four students at Robert Bosch College in Freiburg do not come from the country in which they go to school. “Only about 50 students come from Germany,” explains boarding school spokeswoman Ines Mabrouk. “The others are currently from 80 other countries.”
Many nationalities learn together – thus the United World Colleges, founded in 1962 with a first boarding school in Wales, follow the guiding principle of reform pedagogue Kurt Hahn. In the opinion of the UWC initiator, whose ideas on “fitness for life” and international understanding also go back to the Schloss Salem school, the personality of 16 to 19 year olds can be shaped particularly well. At all UWC schools there are only two grades, namely the final grade and the grade before it – in the German system, grades twelve and 13, or eleven and twelve.
The young people in Freiburg are also preparing for the International Baccalaureate (IB) and are learning in English throughout. Successful completion of the two-year program meets the admission requirements of many universities. If you also want to do the German Abitur, you have to base your choice of subjects on it.
The national committees, represented in this country by the UWC Foundation in Berlin, are of course more concerned than filling young people with knowledge. Even from the aspirants – you can apply until November 28 of each year for the next winter school year – social commitment is required and checked in a demanding selection process. Interest in global issues, social engagement, support for the environment or feminism or against racism and the disadvantage of minorities are expected. Although interested parties can name their preferred countries, the jurors decide which of the 18 UWC boarding schools on five continents the applicant will be admitted to. German classmates can be found all over the world.
The Robert Bosch College charges 72,000 euros for two school years for tuition, accommodation and a wide-ranging affinity and social program. Foundation spokeswoman Tanja Lewandowitz points out, however, that around 85 percent of all students receive a full scholarship. “We orient ourselves towards the family’s social needs,” she says. The college visit should not fail because of the money.