Print version Recommend this page Press release
42/ 2004
Bonn, 25.11.2004
German and foreign participants in continuing vocational training
What skills do their instructors need?
Instructors who teach continuing vocational training classes with students of different descent are often not prepared for handling the special demands involved in teaching culturally mixed learning groups. The question of whether and how they respond to their students' respective difficulties therefore depends upon their personal ability and willingness to get to the bottom of problems that have emerged and to respond adequately and appropriately to these problems despite the time constraints they face in covering large amounts of subject matter. The training and skills that instruction personnel bring to the table are key to the quality and success of continuing vocational training measures. In light of this fact, the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training ("BIBB") is conducting the Instructor Requirements in Continuing Vocational Training with Students of Different National Origin project. This project is examining possible special features of joint learning involving German students and immigrant students in government-funded continuing vocational training programmes. This project is to ascertain whether - and what - special demands are made of instructors with mixed nationalities in their classes and what skills they need in order to deal adequately with these demands.
Foreign employees are particularly dependent on continuing vocational education and training (CVET) when they want to improve their chances on the job market: The unemployment rate among this group has remained constant at approximately 20 percent. However, the unemployment rate among those who have obtained continuing vocational training is comparatively low. Only some 12 percent of all foreign employees attended continuing vocational training measures in 2000, compared to 30 percent of all German employees.
The duration of continuing vocational training courses has been substantially cut in the wake of the so-called Hartz reforms (which have been undertaken to overhaul the labour market). Now, although the amount of subject matter to be covered has not changed, there is less time to do it in. This is having a particularly strong impact on precisely those foreign nationals who attend CVET courses: German is not their native language and now they have to absorb and learn the course material at an accelerated pace in their second language - without didactic support.
The initial findings from the study conducted as part of the BIBB research project indicate that:
- Participants do not go on the offensive when dealing with these difficulties. Rather than immediately asking their instructors for help, they tend to avoid holding up the class with questions and instead spend more time learning alone at home or team up with fellow students of the same nationality who can interpret for them.
- Instructors in the continuing vocational training field who come to this work from a variety of backgrounds (such as former primary school or grammar school teachers or as self-taught IT specialists without any educational training) have to rely on their own particular experience and knowledge in this situation. They have only their intuition and skill to help them identify students who are withdrawing, integrate "loners" into the class and foster functional learning groups.
The project findings will be used to lay a foundation for developing supplementary qualifications for instruction personnel who teach continuing vocational training classes with mixed learning groups.
Point of contact at BIBB for further information regarding the Instructor Requirements in Continuing Vocational Training with Students of Different National Origin research project is Monika Bethscheider (Tel.: +49 228 - 1071 229; e-mail: Bethscheider@bibb.de
Further information on this subject is available on the Internet as part of the BIBB Knowledge Map which can be accessed in German at: www.bibb.de/de/wlk8579.htm
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Training Together in Europe - cross-border collaborative training within the framework of the European Union's Leonardo da Vinci vocational training programme.
Press release No. 14 from the National Agency Education for Europe at BIBB can be accessed (in German) at: http://www.na-bibb.de/home/pressemitteilungen.php
