Print version Recommend this page Press release
15/ 2012
Bonn, 30.03.2012
"Enormous progress in securing the supply of skilled workers in Germany"
BIBB President Esser welcomes the new Recognition Act
"Speaking on the occasion of the enactment of the Federal Government Recognition Act, which enters into force on 1 April, Federal Institute of Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) President Friedrich Hubert Esser declared: "the new Recognition Act facilitates access to the labour market and represents enormous progress in terms of securing the supply of skilled workers in Germany." The Act creates a legal right to a procedure for the recognition of vocational qualifications acquired abroad. Professor Esser went on to say that, in times of increasingly globalisation, it was becoming ever more important to create transparency, to establish comparability between vocational education and training courses and to make VET systems more permeable. "This constitutes one of the major challenges facing us in the future, and is also a challenge which the Federal Institute of Vocational Education and Training in particular will address."
A new website has been launched to accompany the law in the form of www.anerkennung-in-deutschland.de , the official information portal of the German government's Recognition Act which has been developed by BIBB on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The core of this site is a digital guidance system, the so-called "recognition finder". This online tool directs both those seeking recognition and consultants to the relevant competent body responsible for the vocational qualification in question and bundles together all information regarding the recognition of foreign VET qualifications. "Given the diversity of areas of responsibility, it is important to indicate pathways. This is something which the new portal is able to provide, enabling it to make a significant contribution towards the simplification of the recognition procedure", emphasises Esser.
The database underlying the "recognition finder" currently encompasses information on more than 500 occupations. It was developed and populated with content by BIBB in conjunction with the Central Office for Foreign Education (ZAB) and the Federal Employment Agency (BA). "We expect that the implementation of the new Act will also deliver findings with regard to the recognition and credit transfer of informal and non-formal learning", Esser explains.
The portal is being financed within the scope of the "Integration through training - IQ" funding programme, which is jointly sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) and the Federal Employment Agency.
For further information, please visit www.anerkennung-in-deutschland.de .
Reprint free of charge - voucher copy requested.
