Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)

Prevention rather than repair

In 2006, 76,000 young people, or 7.8 per cent of all lower secondary school leavers, left school without a certificate of graduation. While the majority of young people have a formal school leaving certificate, many lower secondary school leavers have striking personality and education deficits. Their lack of the maturity needed to complete a course of training successfully means that it is hard for them to get an apprenticeship. A variety of measures have been attempted in the past to promote the insertion of repeat applicants and young people with so-called market disadvantages into the primary labour market. Almost half a million young people spend their formative years in schemes that offer no usable graduation certificates and hence no occupational prospects. Although wait loops and transitional systems keep down the proportion of these young people in the total number of unemployed, many of them end up stigmatised and in a worse position than before.

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research wants to take a different path here with its programme for promoting "Vocational orientation in inter-company and comparable vocational education and training facilities": young people should be assisted in choosing an occupation before rather than after they leave school.

Discovering individual proclivities and talents

Starting in grade eight, students in the schools of general education have the chance to get to know three different occupations and try out the specific occupational activities in practice for two weeks (80 hours in all) in an inter-company vocational training facility or comparable educational facility. They make workpieces that they take home with them at the end of that period as the presentable product of their work. They are instructed and individually monitored in the workshops by master trainers.

This is preceded by a so-called competence check in which the young people become aware of their individual predilections and can test their aptitude for manual work. At the end of the two-week vocational orientation, each young person receives a certificate covering the work done with conclusions about proclivities and aptitudes, perseverance, thoroughness and capacity for teamwork. The certificate is of great importance as a guide for the young persons, their parents and teachers and especially for companies looking for a trainee.

Many students discover their delight in practical activity during vocational orientation. At the same time, their understanding of the purpose of learning grows and with it their motivation to pay attention in class and exert themselves. Some weak and unmotivated young people manage to improve their grades and pass their final examinations as a result. A training occupation chosen knowledgably and in inner harmony can be expected to be completed successfully, so that the number of trainee dropouts will sink.

Guidance through doing

Inter-company vocational training centres (ÜBS) and comparable educational establishments have been chosen to implement the vocational guidance schemes, since they are especially qualified to do so. The core task of the inter-company vocational training centres is to conduct supplementary courses with young people with apprenticeships so as to supplement and delve more deeply into practical aspects of the job that cannot be taught or not adequately during the working day and to practice the requisite skills. The master trainers know the work flows in the enterprise from their own experience and through contact with the enterprises providing training. They have been educated in pedagogy and can give the individual young men and women more attention than they would get in the enterprise.

15 Million euros annually for vocational guidance schemes

The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) has been commissioned by the BMBF to administer and scientifically monitor the incentive programme. The BMBF allocates 15 million euros a year to incentive funds. At the rate of 300 euros per measure and student, this is enough to fund vocational guidance measures for 50,000 students, or one-quarter of all 2009 school leavers. This brings the Federal Government substantially closer to its declared goal of cutting the number of school leavers without certificates in half by the year 2011.

The workshops in the inter-company vocational training centres are equipped with all the modern devices the use of which corresponds to the state of the art in the trade concerned. Vocational knowledge and skills are taught in a practical manner in the inter-company vocational training centres and in comparable vocational training centres. This benefits young people with less educated family backgrounds, who are especially well represented in the lower secondary schools. Their "school weariness" is often the result of the fact that they have not had access to abstract and theoretical knowledge and learning.
However, they can discover their personal strengths and make them visible in practical understanding and manual activity. Trying out the occupation in practice in an inter-company vocational training centre is more appropriate for them than a vocational studies course in school.

Pilot character of the programme and evaluation

Measures to promote vocational guidance are not new. Work experience and trial courses, in-depth vocational guidance measures of the Federal Employment Agency, some programmes of the federal Länder and the activities of juvenile welfare organisations have been known for years. The outcome of the complexity and lack of coordination of many measures has been that no harmonised concepts have emerged, and that has unsettled many young people. Transition aids have become wait loops, with no prospect of employment in sight.

In cooperation with the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts and selected vocational training facilities, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research examined the vocational guidance already practiced in many inter-company vocational training centres. The incentive programme is based on those practical experiences, which are to be systematised and implemented all over Germany. The initiative is being taken to improve the transition from school to initial vocational education and training with an eye to the social impact of the imminent shortage of skilled workers on the one hand and the lack of the necessary maturity to undertake training on the part of many young people on the other.

The purpose of the scientific monitoring of the incentive programme is to collect, evaluate and publish outcomes and experiences. Cooperation among parents, schools, educational establishments and enterprises, the provision of assistance to the young people, the solution of transportation problems and the opening up of additional sources of funds are problems of general interest the solution of which will co-determine the success of the programme. In addition, ways of extending vocational guidance to other occupations (commercial and social occupations and those in agriculture, the services and administration) will have to be found. It is important to build viable structures so as to minimise the deployment of incentive funds while still having a broader impact. In the long run, vocational guidance should reach all students in the schools of general education. A decision on extension of the pilot programme beyond the projected three years (up to 31 December 2010) will be made when the evaluation is completed.

The fact that five million euros in incentive funds were already allocated in the first four months of the project shows how attractive the programme is.

Terms of support and submission of applications

Information on terms of support, assistance in submitting applications, forms and publications can be obtained under
www.bibb.de/berufsorientierung.

Applications for grants can be submitted to the BIBB at any time at this address:
Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung
Arbeitsbereich 3.4
Postfach
53142 Bonn

Please direct any questions you may have to the BIBB by e-mail: Berufsorientierung@bibb.de or by phone: (+49) 228/107-1031

Last modified on: August 13, 2009