Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)

Occupations - Developments and prospects

The articles in this issue offer insights into how current demands on the modernization of vocational education and training are being addressed and translated into action not only in the work being done on training regulations but also in day-to-day vocational training practice. Examples of areas that this pertains to include issues involving competence-orientation, the integration of supplementary qualifications into training regulations, linking initial and continuing vocational training more closely with one another, and the development of task-based examinations. Using selected findings from vocational qualification research, these articles also illustrate how occupational profiles are being refined and progressively developed with an eye to future developments. In his commentary in this issue, 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. This issue also contains articles on the new 2009 Ordinance on Trainer Aptitude, on the first changes implemented in the 2007 Vocational Training Statistics and on collaborative training ventures in Austria.