Print version Recommend this page Press release
31/ 2004
Bonn, 09.09.2004
Do education vouchers improve publicly-funded continuing vocational education and training?
- BIBB launches new research project -
Education vouchers are designed to improve the quality of publicly-funded continuing vocational education and training (CVET), increase transparency on the CVET market and expand the choices available to potential CVET participants. The education vouchers that Germany's employment agencies have been issuing since January 1, 2003 give unemployed persons or persons at risk of becoming unemployed a means of taking (greater) charge of their continuing education or training themselves. Vouchers outline the training goals, training content and similar requirements that the individual and their respective employment agency have set on a binding basis plus the duration of the CVET. Persons with a voucher in their hand can look around the CVET market themselves and redeem their vouchers at certified 01 training providers whose offerings are a perfect match for their particular training needs. Vouchers however must be redeemed within a certain period of time - usually three months. However, individuals who have received a voucher appear to (still) have difficulties with this new option. According to an internal paper by the Federal Employment Agency, more than 18 per cent of the vouchers issued to date were not redeemed either because the redemption period had lapsed or they were cancelled.
At the same time, it must be noted that the number of persons enrolling in publicly-funded continuing vocational education or training fell substantially in 2003, shrinking by 25 per cent over 2002. This trend has continued through the first half of 2004 which saw a 23 per cent drop over the same period in 2003.02 Are the problems being experienced with the introduction and use of education vouchers one of the reasons for this decline?
The research project Education Vouchers in Publicly-Funded Continuing Vocational Education and Training which Germany's Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training ("BIBB") recently launched will examine this and many other issues associated with the introduction of education vouchers.
The aim of this research project is to ascertain conditions under which education vouchers can be of use as an instrument for managing publicly-funded continuing vocational education and training. The project will analyse the process used to introduce education vouchers, the strategies CVET providers, persons with vouchers and employment agencies follow for their activities or when making decisions, as well as the intentional and unintentional effects that this new instrument has on publicly-funded continuing education and training.
To ascertain all this, the project will examine, inter alia,
- whether the introduction of education vouchers has led to CVET products on offer being geared noticeably more to the market's needs in general and to the needs of companies in particular, whether training measures have become more productive and whether the CVET market has become more transparent;
- how education vouchers have affected the diversity of CVET products on offer and the willingness of CVET providers to adopt innovation;
- which role employment advisors and CVET guidance counsellors play in the use of this new tool;
- what consequences the introduction of education vouchers will have for their actual target group, namely unemployed persons and persons at risk of becoming unemployed.
CVET providers, individuals undergoing CVET and employment agencies will be surveyed as part of the project. The findings from these surveys will
- provide points of departure for developing need-oriented guidance,
- prompt training providers to develop suitable market strategies and
- provide political decision-makers and interested individuals the information they need.
Further information regarding the new BIBB research project Education Vouchers in Publicly-Funded Continuing Vocational Education and Training is available at BIBB from Bent Paulsen, Tel.: + 49 228 - 1071 331, Fax: +49 228 - 1072 973, E-mail: paulsen@bibb.de
