The part-time Bachelor’s programme in Social Work begins each semester with an intensive block week at OTH Regensburg, followed by ten to 14 further teaching sessions per semester on Friday afternoons or Saturdays, held either on campus or online via Microsoft Teams. The remaining coursework is completed through digital learning formats and self-study, so it can be combined with employment. Graduates are awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree and state recognition as a qualified social pedagogue.
‘The demand and the high number of successful graduates show that the part-time study concept has proven its worth,’ says Prof Dr Nicolas Schöpf, programme director at the Faculty of Social and Health Sciences. Of the 163 students in the first six cohorts, 128 have already graduated. A further 15 students from the seventh cohort are close to completing their degrees. There are currently 84 students enrolled. They are between 22 and 57 years old, and around 80 per cent of them are women. Some live beyond Passau, on the Czech border or near Hof, and one student even came from Lake Constance.
Born from a Bavarian state competition
The programme was established as part of the ‘Partnerschaft Hochschule und Region’ (University and Region Partnership) competition, through which the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts promoted the expansion of regional higher education provision in 2015. The aim was to meet social care institutions’ need for academically qualified professionals and to open up an academic pathway for people with vocational qualifications. Among other things, the Free State of Bavaria funded three professorships for the programme and continues to support it today. A project from last winter semester shows how social issues are explored in the programme:
In their migration modules, students asked twelve people with ties to Turkey how they use media in everyday life, for example to keep in touch with family or to stay informed. The impetus came from ForGeRex, a research network on right-wing extremism and counter-strategies funded by the Ministry of Science and coordinated at OTH Regensburg. Research there had shown how social media make networks visible across national borders. This raised the question of whether people with family or friends in several countries use media differently. The findings were published in October in ‘BABS-MI’, the programme’s journal, edited by Prof Dr Martina Ortner, one of the network’s two spokespersons.
Broader access
Until 2025, the programme was only open to early childhood educators and professionals in disability care and special needs education. ‘At the same time, we received many enquiries from people in other social care professions who were very interested in studying Social Work,’ says Jana Faerber, programme coordinator. ‘But back then, there was no way for this group to access the programme.’
Opening up the programme made an impact in its very first year. In September, alongside 24 students admitted under the existing entry requirements, twelve students from other related social care professions began their studies for the first time. While the vocationally qualified professionals join directly in the third semester, the new target groups start in the first semester as usual. This means that a third of the 36 new students came to OTH Regensburg through the expanded admission routes.
Celebration on 24 November
The tenth anniversary will be celebrated on Tuesday 24 November 2026 from 4 pm in OTH Regensburg’s central lecture hall building, Galgenbergstraße 30, under the motto ‘From practice, for practice’. Registration is available via the faculty website. Following a welcome from Dean and programme director Prof Dr Nicolas Schöpf, OTH President Prof Dr Ralph Schneider and Dr Tobias Haaf, Deputy Director-General at the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts, will give welcome addresses. Students and graduates will talk about their career paths, and the event will close with a panel discussion on a question left open in the programme: ‘The future of part-time study is …?’
