Print version Recommend this page Press release
16/ 2005
Bonn, 21.04.2005
Dual Vocational Education and Training vs. Full-Time Vocational Schools: Does one of the two forms of vocational education and training provide better protection against joblessness?
The 2004 OECD report "Education at a Glance" determined that the incidence of joblessness among dual vocational education and training graduates in the work force is two to three percent higher than among those whose occupational qualification comes from a fully qualified full-time vocational school. The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) investigated the factors that contribute to this difference and arrived at the following conclusion. The higher rate of joblessness among dual vocational education and training graduates, as compared to that for graduates of full-time vocational schools, cannot be sited as evidence of a systems-based disadvantage for the former group. Instead, there are two other factors involved that clearly influence joblessness among the two groups. One is the difference in the levels of general education of the trainees and students; the other factor lies in the differences among the occupational fields in which education and training take place. In other words, the form of education and training is not at the root of the disparity between in the two groups in terms of joblessness rates; instead it is, to a much greater extent, a function of the regulated occupations involved and the level of general education achieved.
The BIBB arrived at this conclusion having analysed data from the 2003 Mikrozensus, Germany's official representative statistics.01
The individual structural factors significantly influencing the incidence of joblessness are the following:
- Occupational field for which the vocational education and training takes place
In-company vocational education and training and full-time vocational schools qualify people for different subsections of the labour market. In turn, the employment prospects for these subsections also differ. The educational programs of full-time vocational schools concentrate on subject-based and personal service occupations (e.g. technical assistant occupations in the informatics field, administrative/commercial assistant occupations and occupations in the social and health care systems). The focus in the dual system of vocational education and training is mainly on commercial/technical occupations.
The investigation also ascertained the following. The incidence of joblessness among persons in the work force who have completed a course of education in a commercial/technical occupation is 13.2%. This is 4.4% higher than the rate for those educated in a service occupation (8.8%). In other words, the lower rate of joblessness among full-time vocational school graduates is due to the (service type) occupations for which they have been trained, rather than to the form of their education and training. - Prior School Education
For the most part, full-time vocational schools require their students to have a mittlere Schulabschluss [intermediate secondary school leaving certificate]. As a general rule, in the dual system there are no requirements with respect to academic certificates. Hence the setting of this criterion on the part of vocational schools can be considered a form of positive selection. The consequence of this selection is that persons who graduate from full-time vocational schools hold, on the average, a higher level of general school leaving certificates than do persons who complete in-company vocational education and training. The full-time vocational schools are 6-percentage points ahead of the dual system in terms of the proportion of graduates who hold an intermediate secondary school certificate. They have a 13-percentage point lead when it comes to Abitur [upper secondary school leaving certificate] holders. Furthermore, nearly 50% of dual system graduates have a Hauptschulabschluss [lower secondary school leaving certificate], while that figure is only just under 30% for the full-time vocational schools.
The labour market reveals that the incidence of joblessness is 6.8% for those with upper secondary school leaving certificates; for those with lower secondary school leaving certificates it is 10.6%. In this area as well, one can assume that the disparity in the joblessness rates for graduates of full-time vocational schools and those of the dual system is not rooted in the form of the education and training, but instead, is far more the result of the higher academic qualification attained, on the average, by vocational school graduates.
Conclusion: Taking into account the other aspects that are relevant on the labour market, there is no disparity between the employment chances of graduates of the two different education and training systems. In other words, there are no systemic differences in the risks of joblessness for graduates of the dual system and those of fully-qualifying full-time vocational schools that can be traced to the specific form of education and training.
Over and above the factors presented here, additional, more far-reaching features of the relationship between the type of education and training completed and joblessness were examined using a multivariate model. The overall findings of the study are presented in the article "Welche Ausbildung schützt besser vor Erwerbslosigkeit? Der erste Blick kann täuschen! Absolventen einer Dualen Berufsausbildung und von Berufsfachschulabsolventen im Vergleich," by Anja Hall and Hans-Joachim Schade, published in the current edition (2/2005) of the BIBB journal Berufsbildung in Wissenschaft und Praxis (BWP).
The journal can be ordered for € 7.90 from W. Bertelsmann Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, P.O. Box 10 06 33, 33506 Bielefeld, tel. 0521/911 01-11, fax: 0521/911 01-19, e-mail: service@wbv.de.
