The number of first-year students in the first semester at the University of Erfurt was 951 as at 30 October, while the number of students from abroad who started their studies in the winter semester was 131. There was particularly strong interest among first-year students in the Faculty of Economics, Law, Social Sciences and Social Sciences' Bachelor's programmes, especially International Relations, but also Teaching, Learning and Training Psychology, Special Needs Pedagogy as well as the Master's programmes Health Communication, Public Policy and the Master of Education Primary Schools. The number of first-year students enrolled on the teaching profession at secondary schools has also almost doubled.
"We are delighted that we can once again welcome so many new students to campus despite the enormous challenges of recent years and the overall decline in the number of school leavers," says Professor Julia Knop, Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Erfurt. "This shows that we continue to score highly with our course offerings, good supervision from the outset and comparatively short study times. We are also pleased to welcome 50 new students to our dual study programme for secondary school teaching for the first time – another important contribution to countering the shortage of teachers at secondary schools in Thuringia alongside our regular teacher training programme."