Print version Recommend this page Press release
04/ 2009
Bonn, 22.01.2009
Resolution passed by the BIBB Board: Keep all skill levels open for all education pathways and career paths
One-year trial phase for the German Qualifications Framework (GQF)
The Board of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) considers a German Qualifications Framework (GQF) that spans all education sectors to be an important tool for improving the permeability of the German education system and the parity of vocational and general education. The Board supports conducting a one-year trial phase in 2009 to test the GQF's effectiveness in day-to-day practice. In the Board's opinion, the trial phase should give practitioners in the field and the education policy sector insights into whether the descriptors used in the draft GQF enable the desired assignment of skills and qualifications and whether the GQF is compatible with the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). The BIBB Board especially calls for ensuring that "fundamentally all of the GQF skill levels can be achieved via school-based, in-company, university and vocational education pathways and career paths" and "it is basically not possible to reserve certain levels for certain qualifications".
In light of the GQF's particular importance for Germany's education and employment systems, the BIBB Board recommends that the German government implement the GQF on an inter-departmental basis. At the same time, the highest decision-making body of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training has called upon the German government to incorporate the Board's recommendations into the presently pending resolutions on the GQF and continually include BIBB bodies in the GQF's ongoing development.
Under German law, the BIBB Board has the task of advising the German government on fundamental issues involving vocational education and training. Representation on the Board of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training is equally divided between labour, management, Germany's federal states and the federal government.
The text of the resolution adopted by the Board of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) on organising a trial phase for the German Qualifications Framework (GQF):
