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Advisory services and international cooperation

Interest in collaborating with BIBB has increased enormously in recent years. Growing numbers of German and foreign institutions and organisations want to draw on BIBB's know-how in the international vocational education and training field and collaborate with BIBB on research projects and development and advisory activities.

Qualified skilled workers are the most important resource for a country's economic and social development. Vocational education and training (VET) helps improve employability and is an important element in the individual's personal development. More and more countries are overhauling their vocational education and training systems with an eye to these two objectives.

BIBB advises partner countries in connection with the modernisation of their VET systems. BIBB's system-based advisory services begin with national VET policy structures, are directed at future education policy goals and strategies and thus offer points of departure for progressively developing and modernising vocational education and training in the particular country.


 

Background

Germany's Vocational Education Act (Section 90 (3)) lays down BIBB's responsibilities in the area of international collaboration: "The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training shall ... in accordance with the instructions of the competent federal ministry ... take part in international cooperation in the field of vocational education and training."  

BIBB also declares in its Mission Statement: "We cooperate with international partners and offer services worldwide. We advise international partners on the development and modernisation of vocational education and training. We initiate and maintain international networks. This also enables us to foster the efficiency and competitiveness of the German system of vocational education and training and contribute to the creation of the European Education Area."  

In this connection, BIBB's strategic objectives provide for "strengthening the European and international dimension in BIBB's work" and the Section Objectives for 2010 state: "strengthen the international dimension in BIBB's work ... give system-based advisory services in the international VET field a lasting conceptual and structural form."    

 


International cooperation and system-based advisory services

BIBB distinguishes between two lines of action in its international work:

  • International cooperation: International cooperation is any form of interaction and professional exchange (such as lectures, workshops, seminars, meetings of experts, looking after visitor groups and guest researchers). The focus of these activities is on the exchange of information and sharing of experience in connection with current issues and problems in the area of initial and continuing vocational education and training.
  • System-based advisory services: BIBB's system-based advisory services aim at bringing about changes in the respective VET system; these include in particular the establishment of centres of excellence, reform of corresponding statutory instruments/ examination regulations, and the development of standards in the respective partner country. This work focuses primarily on the development of tailor-made concepts and strategies that take the special features and needs into consideration that are specific to the respective country. BIBB's system-based advisory services are underpinned and flanked by research. In this connection BIBB also participates as a partner in consortia in European calls for proposals.

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An historical overview of BIBB's advisory activities

International collaboration in the VET field has been one of BIBB's mandated tasks only since 1994. According to the Vocational Training Promotion Act from 12 January 1994, BIBB is to participate in international cooperation in the field of vocational training in accordance with the instructions of the competent federal minister, a task that was laid down once more in the 2005 Vocational Training Act (Section 90 (3), sub-paragraph 1). Thus, what was something of a visionary task 40 years ago, has for the last 16 years become the challenge of raising BIBB's international profile. In light of the enormous political importance of international cooperation in the VET field, it has additionally been vital that BIBB 0 in agreement with the Federal Ministry of Education and Research 0 take a strategic approach to its international activities, develop and expand its international and intercultural competences, progressively develop on a targeted basis development methods and instruments for international VET advisory services, and market German vocational education and training to a greater degree at international level.

 

The beginning in the early 1990s

As the countries of Central and Eastern Europe embarked on the transition to democracy and market economy structures in the early 1990s, they also began reorganising their vocational education and training systems. Germany provided effective assistance for these activities through the German government's TRANSFORM programme. In late 1992, the then Federal Ministry of Education and Science assigned the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) the task of assisting 11 Central and East European countries with reforming their VET systems. These 11 countries were: Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, the Slovak Republic and Ukraine.

The advisory services provided by BIBB gave centre stage to a dialogue at political / administrative level. Political decision-makers and representatives of relevant groups in trade, industry and society were advised in connection with the establishment and development of legal and institutional conditions for modern vocational training and with the development of vocational standards. Considerable funding was provided for projects and pilot schemes which first and foremost served as guideposts for the continued training of instruction personnel. Additionally, it was possible to generate synergies that extended beyond national borders through collaboration in various projects (such as collaborative activities in pilot projects in the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Poland).

Great importance was attached to including national vocational training institutes in the collaborative activities and in project funding. Vocational training institutes flanked the development of these innovations and fostered their wide-scale transfer to VET practice wherever possible. BIBB's advisory activities were additionally accompanied by an intensive exchange of information and experience between the German side and the respective partner country. All in all, some 70 projects and consultation measures were conducted and more than 100 occupations, new fields and modules for vocational training (particularly in commercial and skilled trades) were newly developed or updated within a period of just a few years.

 

Development and expansion in the late 1990s

The advisory services project that BIBB conducted in Turkey from 1994 to 2002 targeted the development and introduction of national occupational standards, examination procedures and certification procedures. Using labour market demand as a starting point, standards were developed for up to three requirement levels for 250 occupations; corresponding procedures and structures were additionally drawn up for conducting practical and theoretical examinations and for certifying workers on the basis of these standards.

The project was financed by a loan which the World Bank granted to Turkey's ministry of labour and its labour market authorities. This project was incorporated (as a component) into the World Bank's Employment and Training project which targeted closer coordination between the labour market and the initial and continuing vocational training system and covered measures to improve vocational guidance and preparation, placement services and labour market research, in addition to the component described above.

The immediate aim of the BIBB advisory services project was to contribute to greater transparency in the qualifications on offer and in the qualifications in demand by introducing a system of vocational standards that would attract a consensus within Turkish society and by establishing corresponding examination and certification procedures. In addition to updated occupational designations, the occupational standards that were developed in close cooperation with representatives from trade and industry as part of this project contain a detailed description of the range of activities (duties) that are part of the respective occupation plus associated functions (tasks). In addition, the individual occupations were categorised according to the ILO's International Standard Classification and the occupational profiles which CEDEFOP developed for the EU.

In the course of conducting the project, BIBB not only served an advisory function vis-à-vis representatives of the Turkish government, trade, industry and worker representatives, it also assumed full material and personnel responsibility for the project. To implement the project BIBB employed over its course 13 local experts at a BIBB liaison office in Ankara and approximately 30 moderators to conduct throughout the country some 750 workshops on the development of standards and examination units.

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Last modified on: December 13, 2010

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Publisher: Federal Institute for Vocational Training (BIBB)
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