Print version Recommend this page Press release
29/ 2004
Bonn, 11.08.2004
Collaborative vocational training helps disadvantaged youths make the transition from training to the working world
Disadvantaged youths who undergo so-called collaborative vocational training in which they receive training not only at an external training centre but also on an in-company basis learn important things for (occupational) life: Mastering day-to-day operational routines fosters their autonomy, increases their willingness to assume responsibility and boosts their motivation to perform well and complete their training. Education policy measures - which to date have concentrated on vocational preparation and, in the process, on helping youths make the first transition (i.e., from school to vocational training) - must now be followed by initiatives and concepts that help young people make the second transition (from vocational training to the working world). Collaborative vocational training - where in-company segments are more firmly incorporated into external training segments than previously was the case - is pioneering a route which vocational training could take to assist disadvantaged youths.
This is the finding of a study in which Germany's Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training ("BIBB") examined experience with collaborative forms of vocational training for disadvantaged youths. The recently released publication Kooperative Berufsausbildung in der Benachteiligtenförderung. Ein Ansatz zur Verzahnung außerbetrieblicher und betrieblicher Berufsausbildung (Collaborative vocational training in the advancement of disadvantaged youths. An approach to meshing external with in-company vocational training) outlines various types of collaborative training found in actual practice, presents their respective advantages and disadvantages, enumerates important factors for their success, describes problem areas and points out approaches to solutions.
Selected findings from this study:
Forms of collaboration:
- The forms of collaborative vocational training that have emerged in actual vocational training practice can be broken down into two basic types: The first type practises a gradual transition from training facility to in-company practical training during the course of training. By contrast, the second type has the individual company involved right from the start, providing varying amounts of training - and in some cases, the entire practical technical training.
Advantages and disadvantages:
- Collaborative forms of vocational training generally receive positive marks from the persons involved. Primary advantages cited for trainees include the acquisition of personal and social skills and positive effects on personality development as a result of mastering day-to-day work in a company.
- The disadvantages for training providers in particular are financial in nature. At the time of the survey, a trainee's transition to in-company vocational training went hand-in-hand with a financial loss for the training facility.
Problem areas and approaches to solutions:
- The trainee-based system of financing that is used today tends to be an obstacle to collaborative training. By contrast, arrangements (bonus arrangements, graduated prices) that offset the financial loss a training provider suffers when the trainee starts the in-company training segment or arrangements that finance the provider's supplementary activities (such as recruitment measures, maintaining contact with companies that provide in-house training, coordinating learning venues, providing expanded forms of assistance to flank training) appear to foster it.
- Arranging more in-company practical placements and good public relations work by the training provider can counteract a lack of willingness to provide in-house training which companies may have due to prejudices against disadvantaged youths. Once firms can be persuaded to participate in collaborative training, their attitudes toward disadvantaged youths change very fast. Representatives of the companies taking part in the study had a very positive attitude toward collaborative vocational training and expressed willingness to participate in this form of training in the future as well.
The German-language publication Kooperative Berufsausbildung in der Benachteiligtenförderung. Ein Ansatz zur Verzahnung außerbetrieblicher und betrieblicher Berufsausbildung from Hildegard Zimmermann (ed.) can be ordered for € 29.90 from W. Bertelsmann Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Postfach 10 06 33, 33506 Bielefeld, Germany; Tel. + 49 521 - 9110 111, Fax: +49 521 - 9110 119, E-mail: service@wbv.de
