Print version Recommend this page Press release
36/ 2005
Bonn, 06.09.2005
Vocational training for sustainable development
Special BIBB conference to kick off the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
Sustainable development means managing one's affairs in the here and now without impairing the resource base or livelihoods of other people or future generations and without taking more from nature than it can regenerate. Initial and continuing vocational training plays a central role in achieving this: It has the job of teaching people how to shape occupational situations in which they are active players in ways that foster sustainable development, thus enabling them to assume responsibility - for themselves, for other people, for their companies, machines, the environment and the future. The second national conference Sustainability in Vocational Training and Work which the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training ("BIBB") is organizing in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education and Research will be held in Bonn on 7 and 8 September 2005. Being conducted as part of the UN Decade for Education of Sustainable Development, this conference will provide concrete examples and discuss how the principle of sustainable development can be implemented in vocational education and training.
On the first day of the conference, six sector-specific forums will focus on how vocational skills can be methodically taught in such a way that students learn to recognize and put into practice the guiding principle of sustainable development. This will be illustrated with the help of examples from the energy, chemical, construction and automobile sectors, the area of renewable resources and the commercial field. On the second day of the conference, six cross-occupational teams will deal with strategic issues that centre on vocational training for sustainable development: These discussions will revolve around forming networks, sustainable management, learning from good examples, global learning, international cooperation and sustainable development's impact on employment. The conference will be flanked by a Market of Possibilities where some 25 training centres and institutions will present their work.
This special conference puts vocational training squarely into the framework of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development that that the UN proclaimed for the years 2005 - 2014 (for more information, please see http://www.unevoc.unesco.org/sustainable/index_old.htm ). In addition to the substantive focal points of the work scheduled for the two days, the conference will also serve the more than 200 participants as a forum for the recognition of past work. In addition, the conference will mark the kick-off of three funding priorities that will be financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (German Federal Foundation for the Environment). BIBB is working to pool, network and disseminate activities aimed at injecting sustainable development into vocational training. These funding priorities will make an important contribution toward moving these efforts forward.
- More than 30 projects and models for vocational training will be awarded the title Official Decade Project of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development in recognition of their work. The awards will be presented by the Secretary General of the German UNESCO Commission, Dr. Roland Bernecker, together with representatives from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt and the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training.
The conference will also mark the launch of
- 10 pilot projects on Fostering Vocational Training for Sustainable Development covering energy technology, the automotive component industry and the chemical sector. These projects also pertain to sustainable sport management, small and medium-sized enterprises, skills development in middle management in industry and the sustainable qualification of various target groups in the vocational training field. Through its provision of funding for these projects, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has considerably expanded its pilot project programme that is part of its Vocational Training for Sustainable Development funding priority. It has allocated a total of some € 5 million in funding for these activities for a period of three to four years. The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training will provide flanking technical and administrative support for all these projects. Further German-language information regarding these pilot projects can be accessed at www.bibb.de/nachhaltigkeit.
- The interdisciplinary, vocational training-based Sustainable Forestry project which the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training has been tasked to conduct. This project is being conducted as part of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research's Sustainable Forestry priority research activities. This priority field of research is the first of a series of such fields under the large-scale Research for Sustainability programme set up by the federal government. In the course of more than 20 collaborative projects involving "sustainable forestry", the effects of technical and sociological research will be analyzed, summarized and processed in such a way that they can be put to practical use with a view to the progressive, "sustainable" development of vocational training for relevant occupations in forestry and the timber industry.
- The Sustainability in Vocational Training and Work Good Practice Agency: The Secretary General of the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, Dr. Fritz Brickwedde, and BIBB President Manfred Kremer will inaugurate this new online information and communications agency. Its aims include offering enterprises, part-time vocational schools, training centres and other institutions with examples of good practice a platform where they can present their work to the public - so that their exemplary activities can serve as a model and prompt others to follow their example. The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training is setting up the agency with funding from the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt and in cooperation with the Hanover-based Institute for Environmental Protection in Vocational Training.
A detailed conference programme and extensive additional information on the BIBB priority topic Vocational Training for Sustainable Development can be accessed in German at www.bibb.de/nachhaltigkeit.
Your point of contact at BIBB regarding the priority topic Vocational Training for Sustainable Development is Konrad Kutt, Tel.: +49 228 -107 1513, E-mail: kutt@bibb.de.
