Federal Republic of Germany 
BIBB, Mai 1997
 

Availability of Training Places (Traineeships) Vocational Education and Training Reform Project More Mobility in Europe Through Transparent Qualifications Current Status of the Procedures for Revising Training Regulations Availability of Training Places (Traineeships) The latest half-yearly report of the Federal Labour Office on the current number of traineeship negotiations points to the likelihood of a shortage of training places if ways and means are not found in the immediate future to increase the supply, for although more than 600 000 young people are currently undergoing training, an additional 13 000 training places are required this year. Apart from existing regional disparities, an exceedingly problematic situation is emerging in the new federal Länder. The halting economic growth in these areas is having a serious impact on the training place market. Similar trends are also evident in the old federal Länder even though the severity of the problem has not reached the levels of eastern Germany. For the first time in years it is unlikely that there will an overall surplus of training places. The rise in the demand for training places can be attributed to the sustained marked increase in the number of school leavers and the unceasing popularity of dual-system training. The shortage is exacerbated by the applications of many young people who missed out on a training place the year before. The severe imbalance has declined steadily in recent years since applicants have started or continued their training at schools and many applicants from the new Länder have taken up in-company training in one of the old Länder. This year problems are looming, so steps are being taken on the political front to counteract this threatening lack of training places. Back in March the federal government joined forces with the German business world and the Federal Labour Office to launch a joint initiative called "Training - Let's Be In It". In addition to this, there are again signs that a special traineeship creation programme will be needed in the new Länder. The federal government is making an effort to reach an agreement as soon as possible with the new Länder that might lead to the creation of 14 300 training places. The first priority is for companies themselves to show more responsibility for training again in order to boost the supply of training places. The federal government has therefore appealed in particular to: companies, the chambers and the collective-agreement partners to mobilize all their reserves to increase the supply of training places; the chambers to relax the chamber fees for enterprises providing training; companies to utilize the fruits of an economic upturn primarily for creating more training places; especially foreign business people to exploit their great unused training potential. The number of foreigners who have set up a business in Germany has grown constantly since the mid-1980s. Most of the 245 000 businesses (1994 figures) run by foreigners are very small enterprises, and few of them offer training. This has probably less to do with an unwillingness to train than with a lack of knowledge about the legal requirements. The federal government wants to remedy this situation with appropriate measures. Other activities in this direction are the creation of "Training Alliances", which have helped to curb the shortages in training places in some Länder and regions in the past. The collective-agreement partners are also being encouraged to include measures to raise the supply of training places in their negotiations. The proposal of the federal government to make vocational school hours more flexible and more responsive to the needs of enterprises is likewise aimed at creating more training places. For example, Lower Saxony is the first Land to abolish vocational school attendance on one of the two usual days a week after trainees have reached their second year. In contrast to the trend elsewhere in Germany, the number of training contracts concluded in Lower Saxony then increased by 1.1%. [Back to the top] Vocational Education and Training Reform Project The economy, technology and society are all changing fast. Trends in strategically important technologies such as information and communication technologies and biotechnology, the leap from an industrialized society to an information society, the globalization of economies and the accompanying restructuring of work organization are shaping these changes. The only way to meet these challenges is through a modern, efficient and effective education system. Making the necessary reforms to the education system is not only a question of securing the attractiveness of Germany for investors and making German goods and services competitive on the world market, it is also a question of securing the future of German youth. All forecasts assume that skilled workers and managerial personnel with in-company training will be needed for two thirds of all jobs. The dual system of vocational training is therefore one of Germany's greatest economic assets. It allows the country to train a very high percentage of young adults to qualify as skilled workers. The merits of the dual system of vocational training must therefore be preserved. Its assets include its direct link to the labour market, the holistic and action-oriented method of learning on the job, the uniform national minimum standards that ensure quality, transparency and broad-scale marketability of skills on the labour market, the assumption by the economy of the lion's share of responsibility for training, and the involvement of the social partners in shaping, developing and implementing vocational training. Bearing these challenges in mind and upholding the tenet that all young people who aspire to in-company training must be given the opportunity to do so, we have no alternative but to overhaul and update the vocational training system. The dual system needs a framework that allows enterprises more freedom in shaping their training and caters for the specific situation of the various companies and the individual development of trainees. The measures introduced by the federal government in 1995 to make the framework conditions for vocational training easier and more attractive for enterprises and to accelerate the adaptation of occupational profiles to structural and technological change by developing new and updated occupational profiles are to be systematically continued and intensified through a specific reform project. The objectives of the "Vocational Training Reform Project - Flexible Structures and Modern Occupations" are: Dynamic and open-design training regulations for a working world in change; Keeping the dual system of vocational training open as a road into the working world for all by providing a diverse supply of training courses with new opportunities for slow learners and the exceptionally gifted; Development of new occupations and speedy modernization of existing ones to ensure a wide supply of occupations that will meet future demands; Modern framework conditions for lifelong learning in flexible continuing training structures; More mobility in Europe through transparent qualifications; Putting vocational and general education on an equal footing; Further improvements to the framework conditions for on-the-job vocational training; Short-term tapping of all on-the-job training resources. [Back to the top] More Mobility in Europe Through Transparent Qualifications One of the focal points in the federal government's vocational education and training reform project is the issue of transparency of qualifications in the European Union. The freedom of the Single European Market and the growing mobility of workers mean that both employers and workers need to be able to compare certificates and qualifications from the various countries. The argument for mutual recognition of certificates is based on the assumption that qualifications recognized throughout Europe should be linked with collective agreements in the labour markets of all Member States. A labour market regulated according to training qualifications is neither reality nor is it desirable in Germany. More mobility requires deregulation, not further regulation of labour markets in Europe. Furthermore, standardized certification of qualifications throughout Europe would assume static, if not absolutely standardized, systems. For this reason it would have no impact on the rapidly changing employment systems and qualification requirements in Europe. Thus, the answer is not an ineffective set of complex, bureaucratic recognition and certification procedures throughout the European Union. It is rather an issue of transparency of qualifications for employers and workers in Europe in order to promote innovative change and mobility by encouraging systems to compete and arrive at optimum solutions. If Europe is to be competitive it needs efficient - and that means simultaneously flexible and transparent - national certificates with a "European dimension". The federal government, the Länder and the social partners in the Federal Republic of Germany favour drawing up transparent, descriptive, multilingual application forms and documents certifying qualifications (portfolio approach). For this reason, starting in 1996 all new and updated training regulations in Germany will be outlined in a "training profile" in which the duration of training, the field of work typical for the occupation and the occupational skills acquired during training will be described in German, English and French so that they can be understood throughout Europe. The federal government, together with the German social partners and the Länder, will continue to be committed to consolidating this open and flexible approach at European level to promote cross-border mobility of workers, and it will do everything in its power to abolish bureaucratic regulations in Europe. [Back to the top] Current Status of the Procedures for Revising Training Regulations The reform of the dual system of vocational training in Germany is also reflected in the status of the current procedures for revising the training regulations for recognized training occupations. Within two years some 120 training regulations, including more than 20 completely new occupations or areas of specialization will be restructured. In 1996, three totally new training occupations were among the 21 new training occupations that became legally effective. On 1 August 1997, another 47 training occupations, including 14 completely new training occupations or areas of specialization, will come into force. And in 1998, yet another 51 new training regulations are expected to take effect. At the present time the social partners are dealing with 23 training regulation elaboration and co-ordination procedures. They are focusing on a number of occupations in the hotel and catering trades and the service industry, such as hotel clerk, hotel manager, restaurant manager, automobile agent, travel clerk, bank clerk and electronic office information technician. Elaboration and co-ordination procedures for a further 47 training occupations are in preparation. These include a number of industrial and craft building occupations and trades as well as service sector clerks, e.g. labour promotion clerk. Vocational qualifications in the field of biotechnology are being developed. Two research projects entitled "Basic structures for vocational qualifications in recreational and leisure-time management" and "Basic structures for reforming the training occupation of housekeeper" are to lead to updated regulations in these fields. These figures provide impressive evidence of the innovative nature of the dual system of vocational training. By redesigning and updating existing training occupations and creating completely new occupations for fields in which there have been no comparable qualification opportunities so far, the dual system manages to respond to new trends and developments in technology, the economy and society by establishing corresponding vocational education and training courses. Based on 1996 figures, the latest available on the structure of training occupations, it is evident that from 1997 on, 60% of the total of 1.6 million 1997 trainees will undergo training in occupations that have been overhauled in the course of the last 10 years. In the area of further training, four regulations will probably come into effect in 1997; draft regulations in accordance with Section 246 of the Vocational Training Act are currently being prepared for four occupations. Elaboration and co-ordination procedures are being drawn up for five commercial/ administrative occupations under an agreement between the social partners. The Federal Institute for Vocational Training is currently conducting research and development projects on a number of other occupations in the service sector. Source: BIBB [Back to the top]