Print version Recommend this page Press release
07/ 2007
Bonn, 08.02.2007
Improving training opportunities for young people with back-grounds of migration
Young people with migration backgrounds have much worse chances of finding a training place than young people without such backgrounds. Only 42 per cent of all young people with migration backgrounds who expressed the wish for in-company training in 2006 actually found a training place. The figure for young people without such backgrounds was about 54 per cent. Those are the results of the latest school leaver survey of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB). Almost one young person in four with a migration background (23.2 per cent) goes on to a full-time vocational school that does not provide a vocational certificate, takes basic vocational training or attends vocational preparation classes (young people without migration backgrounds: 13,1 per cent). Another approximately 15 per cent are unemployed or otherwise not working. The figure for young people without such backgrounds is only 5.5 per cent.
"These figures show", says BIBB President Manfred Kremer, "that the opportunities of qualified vocational education and training for young people with migration backgrounds have to be improved considerably. For example, enough target group-oriented training places have to be provided to make post-qualification possible for young adults without vocational certificates and increase the degree of recognition and utilization of intercultural competences."
The BIBB analyses the training situation of young non-Germans in the dual system of vocational education and training regularly on the basis of vocational training statistics and the population projections of the Federal Statistical Office. In 2005, about 67,600 out of the total number of trainees had foreign passports. That amounts to about 4 per cent. As a proportion of the resident population in the same age group, however, young non-Germans account for about 10 per cent, which is more than twice that figure. Thus the number of non-German trainees in the vocational education and training system is disproportionately small. This applies in both the old and the new Federal States.
The training participation rate of young non-Germans (the number of non-German trainees as a proportion of all young non-Germans between the ages of 18 and 21) has also decreased sharply. In 2005 it stood at 24 per cent compared to 34 per cent in 1994. By comparison, the training participation rate among young Germans has declined as well in the past decade, but to a much lesser extent. In 2005 it stood at 58 per cent, more than twice as high as that of young non-Germans.
The difficulties faced by young people with migration backgrounds on the way to vocational education and training are further underscored by a study carried out jointly by the Federal Employment Agency (BA) and the BIBB among 5,100 training place applicants who registered with the BA in 2004: Applicants with migration backgrounds were much less successful (29 per cent) than native youth (40 %) in obtaining in-company training places. In addition, young adults with migration backgrounds (between 25 and 35 years of age) were much more often left without vocational certificates (41 per cent) than those without such backgrounds (15 per cent).
Even with the same schooling prerequisites, non-German applicants had much worse chances than German applicants. The differences are especially pronounced in the case of graduates with intermediate school leaving certificates. While only 34 per cent of the intermediate school graduates from migrant families found training places, the proportion of native applicants with the same school leaving certificates who did so was 47 per cent.
You will find further information in the article "Integration und berufliche Ausbildung" which you can find at the BIBB website under www.bibb.de/de/wlk28963.htm
Questions regarding content will be answered at BIBB by:
- Dr. Alexandra Uhly, Phone: 0228 / 107-1905, E-mail: uhly@bibb.de
- Dr. Mona Granato, Phone: 0228 / 107-1227, E-mail: granato@bibb.de
- Michael Friedrich, Phone: 0228 / 107-2023, E-mail: friedrich@bibb.de
