wbmonitor - Surveying providers of continuing vocational education and training
Why is wbmonitor needed?
The market in the field of continuing education and training is large but rather non-transparent. There are no legal provisions for collecting data from continuing education and training providers. The BIBB therefore surveys providers of continuing vocational education and training (CVET) on a regular basis to gather information on and the practitioners' views of current topics and problems in continuing vocational education and training. Survey results and analyses are prepared with usability for politics, research and practice in mind.
wbmonitor fills a gap because it takes information gathered in other polls, for instance those involving the participants' viewpoints, and supplements it by the viewpoints of the providers.
What is wbmonitor trying to achieve?
wbmonitor attempts to contribute to more transparency on the continuing education and training market by studying and continually observing the available open programmes for continuing vocational training and the provider structures. New skills developments are to be identified at an early stage and the information is to be made available to vocational education and training experts.
What are the advantages of wbmonitor?
wbmonitor is an independent, non-commercial source of information and opinions about the continuing vocational training field of work. Apart from providing structural data it makes it also possible to determine trends on the continuing education and training market by doing comparisons over a period of time. The most important results of the surveys are published in the Report on Vocational Education and Training of the federal government, in specialist journals like BWP and other publications and on the Internet.
What is the target group of wbmonitor?
The target group includes providers offering CVET accessible to the public on a continuous or a recurrent basis.
What is meant by CVETin the context of wbmonitor?
wbmonitor defines CVETas education programmes which are professionally usable by trained or experienced employees, loosely following the definition coined in 1970 by the German Education Council.
Who participates in wbmonitor?
- Approximately 4,500 continuing training providers have agreed to participate regularly in surveys conducted by wbmonitor.
- The surveys are coordinated and technically implemented by the wbmonitor team at the BIBB. The BIBB's respective specialised departments are in charge of certain special topics.
- An advisory board, consisting of internal experts, and external experts support the wbmonitor team.
What is the concept of the survey?
"Conciseness - Information -Transparency" are the leitmotifs of wbmonitor:
- In the case of providers with several locations, wbmonitor approaches the respective local company or enterprise unit, department or establishment offering programmes ("company concept").
- The surveys are kept short and take place twice a year at the most.
- The results of the preceding survey are included with the questionnaire.
- The questionnaire and selected original answers as well as tables are available on the Internet under www.bibb.de/wbmonitor.
Which surveys have been conducted so far and with which goals?
- First survey (initial survey) 2001 of approximately 11,000 continuing education and training providers from the KURS database of the Federal Employment Services. Goals: gathering structural data about the providers and recruiting participants for monitoring.
BiBB Initial Survey of Continuing Education and Training Providers - Second survey 2002 involving approximately 3,000 providers willing to participate. Goals: gathering information on existing cooperation of providers and their possible extended cooperation in the future.
Survey 1/2002 - Provision and Cooperation in Vocational Education and Training - Third survey 2002 of 11,000 providers from additional data sources. Goal: covering the continuing education and training landscape widely and representing it as accurately as possible.
- Fourth survey 2003 involving now approximately 4,500 providers willing to participate in wbmonitor. Topic: the consequences of a changed labour market policy on the continuing education and training market. Goals: experiences and opinions of the providers, for instance on the introduction of education vouchers.
- Latest survey: Summer 2005 - Quality management and product tests in continuing education and training
Selected results
- The providers participating in wbmonitor represent more than 290,000 staff members. Of these, 82,000 are doing full-time and 205,000 part-time or free-lance work in the field of education. One half of these providers employ no more than six full-time and no more than ten part-time employees. The teaching staff gave almost 60 million hours of lessons to 5.4 million participants in 270,000 courses.
- Quantitatively, classroom courses and formalised training and educational programmes continue to dominate. However, the providers see potential for growth in virtual learning programmes and in learning services provided in companies.
- 94 % of the providers surveyed stated that they maintain longer-term cooperation partnerships, most frequently with former clients (51 %) and other continuing education and training providers (50 %). Joint implementation of programmes and use of technical equipment as well as exchange of personnel account for three quarters of the cooperation activities.
- 62 % of the institutions were founded in or after 1990. 57 % depend financially to 50 % or more on providing continuing education and training. 38 % finance their CVETprogrammes for the most part via private persons or enterprises, 27 % via the employment offices or other public agencies. 23 % of the providers who depend on the employment offices are based in the old federal states, 62 % in the new federal states.
The wbmonitor team:
Coordination
- Dr. Gisela Feller
phone ++49 (0) 2 28-107 1124
feller@bibb.de - Hans-Joachim Schade
phone ++49 (0) 2 28-107 11 17
schade@bibb.de
Technical implementation
- Martin Isenmann
phone ++49 (0) 2 28-107 20 01
isenmann@bibb.de
