Campus dreams, gig work realities

A question that deserves the right solutions in the near future is why at least a small section of Germany’s private higher education network has become a veritable trap for hundreds of Indian students, many of whom leave their careers to seek foreign business management degrees by breaking their banks.

A sight that has become so unmissable, especially in big cities like Berlin, is young South Asian boys, the majority of them Indians, criss-crossing streets and alleys on electric bicycles to deliver food, braving even the freezing winter. According to DAAD India, a branch of the German student exchange service, the number of Indian students doubled in five years to about 60,000 in 2024. On the flip side, this has contributed significantly to the part-time job market.

The conditions that force them to take up such low-paid jobs as delivery riders are quite paradoxical to the fact that Indians earn the highest salaries in Germany, around €1,200 more than the €4,177 median salary of Germans. But these high-paid professionals are mostly in the MINT sectors – mathematics, IT, natural sciences, and technology, including core engineering. The majority of these MINT sector workers are either graduates from German universities, mostly public universities, or overseas recruits with excellent career records.

Several public universities offer world-class education at negligible fees, but have a high entry barrier. On the other hand, private universities that offer courses in business studies, data sciences, and other New Age subjects are more accessible. Many of them seek just 50% marks in qualifying degrees from any foreign university and an IELTS score of around 6.5. Thus, the private universities whose courses get amplified in source markets like India through education consultancies, media advertisements, and social media, become a major attraction for those seeking a foreign degree.

But the catch is the high fees, for which foreign students usually fund their studies through huge bank loans from their home countries. The issuance of visas is conditional on this amount being deposited in blocked accounts in Germany to ensure the applicants are adequately funded for their upkeep. The basic expenditure the banks release to students from their blocked accounts is usually less than €1,000, hardly enough to meet spiralling house rents and living costs. Part-time jobs – called mini jobs and midi jobs – become the only resource to fill this gap.

Strapped with a sluggish economy, mass layoffs, surplus supply in the job market, and the mandatory requirement of at least C1 proficiency (scaled A1 to C2) in German language for most jobs, part-timers become sitting ducks for the low-paid gig economy with no language barrier. Food delivery aggregators usually limit hiring to permanent positions and rely on subcontractors who hire delivery riders. The result is gross exploitation.

Opportunities with rights

Although the European Union has rules guaranteeing gig workers’ rights, a majority of delivery executives work without proper contracts. They sign up through WhatsApp numbers of faceless subcontractors who often pay them cash and keep them on a tight leash under the threat of delisting them at will. As one delivery executive said, they end up working 10-12 hours a day in these “mini jobs”, compromising on the very purpose of enrolling in universities here. While they earn an average of €70 for the day’s work, the work leaves them too tired to focus on their studies.

Some of them even land in the wrong institutions, as nearly 300 Indian students discovered the hard way late last year at one Berlin-based private university where they enrolled for business management studies by paying high fees. They were served with deportation notices since the university lacked proper accreditation and didn’t even have enough teachers. It’s not clear how many managed to stay on.

The recent India-EU free trade agreement that EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen described as the “mother of all deals” is expected to increase opportunities for highly skilled Indian workers in Europe, which desperately needs qualified hands in almost all sectors. But it’s a tough call to make on whether opportunities alone can help Indian students who land in such traps designed by greedy middlemen and subcontractors.

A region known for its strong trade unions that often flex their muscles to bring entire nations to their knees, the only recourse for these hapless students-turned-gig workers is the collectives that have begun to take up their cause and protect their rights and dreams of a foreign degree and a better life.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Berlin)