Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)

Training for healthcare and nursing occupations

Health and nursing care are growing sectors of employment in Germany. Demand for qualified skilled staff is high while qualification pathways are diverse and complex. This issue sets out to present an overview of this aspect. Against the backdrop of the debate surrounding the increasing bias towards academic qualifications in the nursing care occupa-tions, it addresses qualification requirements, new tasks and occupational profiles in nursing care, as well as matters of compatibility and permeability between education and training courses in this sector.
In the editorial, President Esser of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) emphasises that restricting occupations to entrants with academic qualifications is not necessarily the answer to more demanding requirements in the world of work. He points out the opportunities of career-progression models in which initial and advanced vocational education and training are systematically interlinked. Not only do these offer differentiated options at the intermediate level of skilled worker qualifications but also open up transitions to related degree courses once the second level of upgrading training has been attained.
Other articles in the issue deal with the Referencing Report on the implementation of the German national qualifications framework (Deutscher Qualifikationsrahmen, DQR), the career preferences and prospects of young people with migrant backgrounds, the use of modular training in Hamburg, and a model for equipping skilled workers who act as work-place instructors with vocational teaching qualifications.