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The number of training places on offer is expected to decline this year. This is one of the key findings from a telephone survey of some 1,000 enterprises which the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training conducted in cooperation with the Kerpen-based WSF research institute in April 2009.

Werner Friedrich, Klaus Schöngen, Günter Walden

The OECD's indicator-based report "Education at a Glance" from 2008 caused a stir in the German press because it gave Germany poor marks for tertiary education. The tertiary graduation rates used in this report are generally singled out as proof for this supposedly poor performance.

Normann Müller

In his commentary in Issue 3/2009 of the journal "Vocational Training in Research and Practice" Professor Dr Reinhold Weiß, director of research at BIBB, underscores the importance of occupational research. Occupational research has the task of following structural change, identifying new needs, uncovering causes and causal connections, and developing conceptual proposals.

Commentary by Prof. Dr. Reinhold Weiß, Vice-President of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training and Director of Research, Bonn

Induction processes and development of career entrants as an indicator for the output and outcome of educational systems
Philipp Christian Grollmann
This project is a feasibility study for a cross-national representative survey design that looks at companies' recruitment patterns and measures of supporting induction processes for graduates and labour market entrants.
http://www.bibb.de/en/wlk51673.htm

2009 Work Meeting held by TTnet Germany from 18 - 19 March 2009
http://www.bibb.de/en/51500.htm

BIBB intensifies cooperation activities with Chinese partners
Julia Schmidt, Dr. Gert Zinke, Prof. Zhou Gengfu
Currently, vocational education and training is high up on the Chinese government's agenda. Vocational education and training (VET) is seen as an important basis for economic and social development, and hence constitutes a strategic element of the education system.
http://www.bibb.de/en/51572.htm

14-15 September 2009 | Hofgeismar Evangelical Conference Centre
Beruflichkeit - Societal and education theory points of view
Right from the start, the Discontinuous Employment Histories project group set itself the goal of bringing the sometimes disparate dialogues together on a cross-disciplinary basis and examining the coherence and the theoretical and practical relevance of things that are a matter of course in the individual discourses from their respective perspectives. This will also be done at this 6th Workshop: Working groups - which will be flanked and stimulated by papers on the current state of and prospects for the development of Beruflichkeit (the concept of learning a structured occupation for which there is formal regulated training) - will also discuss the development and significance of formal occupations as the basis for organizing work and this approach's consequences for education work with adults.

9 July 2009 | Nuremberg
Transition from School to an Occupation
The first Nuremberg Education Conference will revolve around the transition from secondary school to an occupation. Recent events have shown us how much global developments influence jobs and skill requirements. In the face of this influence, high-quality vocational training is absolutely essential for equipping young people for an increasingly uncertain labour market. This also applies to Nuremberg as a location for business and investment: Urban society must invest in training the younger generation in order to ensure there are enough skilled workers to meet labour requirements in the future as well.

23 - 24 September 2009 | Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, Bonn
The Training Decision of Firms - Economic Research and Analyses

German enterprises continue to attach great importance to providing in-company vocational training for young people. However, the reasons why an enterprise provides vocational training for youths can vary. Numerous scientific studies have been conducted in recent years regarding the decision to provide in-company vocational training. Important themes in this connection include the provision of in-company vocational training on the basis of investment or production considerations, the costs and benefits of vocational training by international comparison and the influence institutions have on an enterprise's willingness to provide in-company vocational training. The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) has also examined these issues for many years. For this reason, BIBB is holding the conference Enterprises' Decision to Provide In-company Vocational Training - Economic Research and Analyses in Bonn on 23 and 24 September 2009 as part of the Costs and Benefits of In-company Vocational Training research project. The conference is aimed at VET researchers and experts from Germany and abroad. New research will be presented and discussed. Papers will be held in German and in English. Simultaneous interpretating will be provided.

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