Print version Recommend this page Press release
07/ 2004
Bonn, 03 03.2004
Germany's "dual" vocational training system - Close the "fairness gap" and supplement the system with new concepts!
- BIBB president lays out position on current discussion -
"One decisive prerequisite for ensuring a sufficient number of in-house training places for young people is to close the 'fairness gap' that exists between companies that provide in-house training and companies that don't. This would necessitate corresponding agreements on financial equalization at regional and sectoral level. This in turn would call for insight, will and concrete action on the part of the relevant industrial associations, unions and management. These types of solutions are better and more effective than mandated assessment financing through centralized funds, which cannot be done without complicated procedures and bureaucracy." With these words, the president of the Federal Institute for Vocational Training ("BIBB"), Professor Helmut Pütz, gave his opinion on the current discussion over the training place situation and the methods of financing vocational training in Germany, as part of a commentary on the subject "The 2004 training year will be another critical year - The 'fairness gap' has to be closed".1
President Pütz's position: The trend toward eliminating jobs will continue even as the economy gradually improves. As a consequence, not only will the number of in-company training places fall short of the higher levels seen in the past, this situation will seriously threaten Germany's entire "dual" vocational training system in the long term. To meet this challenge, Professor Pütz points out, parts of Germany's vocational training system must be re-thought and re-organized.
For this reason, Professor Pütz proposes - not as an alternative but as a permanent addition to the dual vocational training system - applying the "sandwich system" to the vocational training concept which follows a kind of division of labour, as has already been done with success in Austria and some of Germany's federal states. This model envisions alternating long phases of in-company training (not to be confused with practice periods) with full-time classes at vocational school and ends with a final examination that is held by the respective trade chamber. As in the dual vocational training system, young people could receive a training allowance while undergoing in-company training. Financial assistance during periods of full-time vocational school would be provided through the Federal Training Assistance Act.
As Professor Pütz noted, in an age when workers regularly undergo upgrading training, when workers are expected to have ever more specialized knowledge and know-how and when hiring companies expect skilled workers to have high qualification levels, supplementary training of this type constitutes an answer that is in tune with the times and offers a solution to the continual shortage of in-company training places.
Issue 1/2004 of Berufsbildung in Wissenschaft und Praxis (BWP), a periodical published by the Federal Institute for Vocational Training, with President Pütz's commentary can be ordered for € 7.90 from W. Bertelsmann Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Postfach 10 06 33, 33506 Bielefeld, Germany; Tel. +49 521 - 91 10 111, fax: +49 521 - 91 10 119, e-mail: service@wbv.de
