Development of a credit system for vocational education and training
Promoting permeability in vocational education and training!
The aim of this initiative is to develop and test methods for crediting skills and learning outcomes. These methods are to be transferable and improve mobility and permeability within and between education systems. They will be developed and tested in the course of ten pilot projects that are geared to day-to-day practice in enterprises. The idea behind these projects is to enable new education paths to be opened up and organised to be more permeable. The ten projects are also to help improve the linking of different forms of learning with one another and contribute to collaboration between education institutions. This initiative is geared to the givens of the German vocational education and training system (which include the 'dual' vocational training system, the concept of tailoring vocational training to specific, recognised skilled occupations, and the Vocational Training Act) and to existing programmes and findings from projects that revolve around crediting and registering skills in the German education system, such as the ANKOM initiative for crediting vocational skills toward university studies. This initiative ran from September 2005 to June 2008. The results were summarised and generalised in the course of accompanying research activities that were conducted in the months to June 2009. The ten pilot projects will also take into account the frameworks and parameters that have been developed at European level (the European Qualifications Framework and the European Credit system for Vocational Education and Training).
The efforts being undertaken to systematically develop procedures for registering, crediting and recognising learning outcomes, skills and competences focus on the following four interfaces:
- Between training preparation and 'dual' initial vocational training (which combines part-time vocational schooling with practical work experience)(I)
- In dual vocational training itself; in other words the interface between qualifications that are jointly taught/acquired for various different occupations within a single occupational field (II)
- Between dual initial vocational training and full-time vocational schooling (III)
- Between dual initial vocational training and advanced vocational training (that is regulated by the federal government pursuant to Sections 53 and 54 of the Vocational Training Act) (IV)
