Selected quotes
“Dual training. The name illustrates the principle…

The company organizes learning on an average of three or four days per week on the basis of a training plan, which forms part of the training contract concluded with the trainee. Training in the company is based on training regulations which the Federal Government has issued for each training occupation. These regulations stipulate inter alia the minimum vocational skills which must be taught as well as the examination requirements. …

Trainees attend part-time vocational school on one or two days per week, where they are mainly taught theoretical and practical knowledge related to their occupation; in addition they attend classes on general subjects such as economic and social studies and foreign languages.

Full compulsory education is required for entering such training, that is, candidates must have spent a minimum number of school years (ten as a rule) in general education, which is the sole responsibility of the Länder. …

They train in the company and at the same time attend part-time vocational school in order to qualify for one of the about 349 nationally recognized training occupations within the prescribed period of two, three or three and a half years. …

Apart from completing compulsory education, there are no formal schooling requirements for entrance to dual training. The candidates’ schooling background is, however, an important criterion for most companies when selecting their trainees. …

Candidates who have passed the final examination are awarded a certificate (a Gesellenbrief in the skilled trades) which testifies to the successful completion of training in a state-recognized training occupation. The current 349 recognized training occupations are continuously updated, as necessary. …

The majority of general school leavers embark on training in the dual system. They accounted for 68% in 2008. About 600,000 training contracts are concluded each year. …Most of them (43%) have acquired an intermediate school leaving certificate, about 4% of the trainees have no school leaving certificate whatsoever, while 21% have even acquired higher education entrance qualifications.

The companies which provide training contribute the largest share to the financing of dual training. After deduction of the trainees’ productive contribution, the companies bear an annual net cost of approximately €5,6 billion. The Länder spend roughly €2.9 billion each year on the equipment and operation of part-time vocational schools. …

Many trainees are offered an unlimited work contract by their own training company. Even training graduates who register for work at the employment agency have good chances of

finding a job within a short period of time. Many of them actually find employment in the year inwhich they have completed their training as can be seen from the diagram. Statistics also show a steadily low employment rate of 3-4% among this group in the following years.”Extracts from the whole documents

Bibliographic indications
“Dual Training at a Glance An illustrated introduction – additional information - (text arranged according to slide numbers)”, Federal Ministry of Education and research (BMBF), Germany, 2014

Selected quotes
“It is often suggested that Germany should export its vocational training system to other countries as a means of overcoming economic or social problems existing in these countries. Bold slogans such as “Dual system – an export hit” and “Vocational training made in Germany – a model for success” are heard regularly in the political arena. …

Based on the projects evaluated in 2010/2011, Stockmann and Silvestrini (2013) concluded that projects with the aim of introducing dual or collaborative training structures were largely unsustainable. …To summarize, despite considerable efforts from the German side, Germany’s dual vocational training system remains limited to a few countries in central Europe. …

Exporting a training system from one country to another is not merely a matter of copying the original system, but much more a process of selection and adaptation by the potential importing country. A country will not adopt reforms in its own vocational training system with a view to importing a training model, but will instead define projects with which specific objectives can be achieved or specific target groups reached within the given context. Accordingly, it will selectively choose those elements of a system that appear to offer a benefit, and adapt them in such a way that they can be integrated into the existing structures and cultures. …

Let us imagine a country where no high value has been placed on vocational training by the government, businesses or the population until now. Anyone who manages and whose family can afford it aims to obtain a university degree. Even school qualifications below the university level are considered more important than in-company training programs. That is the starting situation for a possible initiative to overhaul the vocational training system. Is it likely, in a context such as this, that the German dual system with all of its legal, institutional, financial and pedagogical components can be imported as a blueprint? Hardly! …

A vocational training system as it exists today is the result of historical and cultural forces. Germany’s current dual system has been shaped by prevailing legal norms, traditions, pedagogical principles and institutional structures. It did not come about as the result of a rationally considered design on a drawing board, but instead developed gradually “as the result of a national social and cultural history””Extracts from pp.11-14 (Part I. “why is it unfeasible to export vocational training systems in their entirety?”)

Bibliographic indications
“Germany’s dual vocational training system: a model for other countries?”, Prof. Dr. Dieter Euler, A study commissioned by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2013

Selected quotes
“The Beruf is still the “principle” underlying German training and the distribution of labour market opportunities to individual persons. Beruf normally indicates a well-reputed middle-level position in the hierarchy of labour-market and social positions, while academic Berufe are called Professionen (professions). The concept of Beruf (not “the dual system”) is the essential principle of German training according to Th.Deissinger. …

Beruf originally had religious-ethical underpinnings. Its meaning can be traced back to a “vocation” or “calling” by God into a certain position and role in life, which should not be deserted. Nowadays, Beruf is void of religious meanings, but no completely void of ethical dimensions. It is a multifaceted phenomenon: an exchange pattern of a certain area/level of competence and wages/salaries, the core of personal identity, a double-edged element of social stability/rigidity, a particular mode of socialization, a mechanism of social integration and stratification, a concept for the identification of social roles and positions, a bundle of specialized competences, a basis for an occupation of some duration and as such opposed to mere “jobs” and a labour market regulator. …

In the German case, because of the underlying concept of the Beruf, there is a very clear focus of “the dual system” on technical and commercial matters, while training in other areas is much smaller in numbers (e.g. in the liberal professions) or differently organized (e.g. in Berufsfachschulen). The relevant areas are sub-divided in competence claims and sheltered by vested rights. This was the traditional concept of the crafts and the guilds jealously guarded the areas which gave their members a chance to eke out a livelihood against any intrusion either by another guild or by people, who –in the eyes of the guild- didn’t hold the “right kind” of qualification because they had not undergone apprenticeship with a member of the guild. ...

In industrial areas, the Beruf concept has become modernized since 1987 and the design of the different industrial occupations and, hence, the training vocations too, became overlapping to some extent, thus enabling and promoting cooperation between differently competent people. An additional lubrification was introduced by the emphasis on “key competences”. But, certain rigidities may have remained, though the approach has been softened and “enriched”. The “cultivation” of modern skilled workers in industries and the crafts is still based on different educational tracks and a particular training and socialization process and does not enable them to proceed to tertiary education. …

The apprenticeship system contributes to making Germany’s tertiary education sector much smaller than comparable sectors in other economically advanced countries. While in the past this was more or less unanimously seen as a German competitive advantage, present mood seems to be more undecided and contradictory. Many experts … perceive Germany’s comparative low student enrolment in the tertiary education sector as threatening future German economic performance in a period of increasingly knowledge-based process.” Extracts from pp.41-50 (Part “Basic training models and particularity of German apprenticeships”) and from p.106 (“Summary”)

“While general education in principle is subject to voter’s decision, the dual system in its core (the supply of training places and the design of training standards), is not. In addition, the vocational training act from 1969, as already shown, did not change the training system, but codified the apprenticeship system as a mono-integrated system of the private sector, as it was, with a minor change concerning the inclusion of the trade unions into some training decision-making processes. In other words: from Germany’s social plutonic rock a predemocratic structure did not cease to tower into the present German society and still causes the non-modernity of German modernity in various dimensions. ...

The power balance and the power sharing between government, the private sector and their Verbände remain untouched and this allows partial educational reforms only, namely the optimization of sub-systems, while control over the sub-systems essentially remains unchanged. There are also other effects: the stabilization of the party-Verbände democracy reduces the sovereignty of the electorate, turns democracy in the education and training field into a vacuous concept, leaves (parts of ) the population unaware of the importance of education, and thus contributes to educational complacency.”Extracts from pp.93-94 (“Creative destruction, vested Interests and reform perspectives”)

Bibliographic indications
"Why do German Companies Invest in Apprenticeships?", Klaus Schaack with the support of UNESCO-UNEVOC, edited by Klaus Schwarz Verlag Berlin, 2008. ISBN: 978-3-87997-348-4

Selected quotes
“The German vocational education system consists of three elements. 1) The well known dual vocational system consists of parallel on-site training and classes at vocational schools. 2) The school-based system, established within the past 40 years as a substitute of the dual system, focuses on health and social service employment. It was meant to support the upward mobility of the working class. 3) The third column is represented by the so-called transition system. The transition system is to prepare students without apprenticeship contracts (in 2008, 34,1%) who, after additional training, should be prepared to enter one of the other two systems…

The “transition system” encompasses school, intercompany and state-funded extra-company measures for training youth who have neither found access to the dual system nor continue their career in school-based education. The so-called transition system is an institutional form of training to cater to this group of young adults. The system aims at preparing them for entry into actual vocational education and training programs.

Up to 2004, the system witnessed continuously rising numbers of participants. At the same time its contents were differentiated more or less beyond any control.

The emergence of the transition system between graduation from school and entering VET as an alternative to the dual system has a number of reasons which cannot be disclosed here in detail since there is not sufficient fact-finding research for a secure clarification of this phenomenon. However, several reasons can be identified here.

… The companies as such did not offer the number of training places necessary to accommodate all graduates of general schools in occupational training programs. … The requirements for young people who wanted to obtain an apprenticeship training contract with a company increased considerably, e.g. due to the new technologies and knowledge work (cf. Solga 2009: 21f.). As a consequence of this change, the occupational training offered through dual system has increasingly developed into a “golden path“ for “better” qualified trainees…. One of the drivers for this system is “educational marketing”: A lot of these courses are very expensive. Today a huge number of training providers is operating in this field. . …This has lead to a confusing and multifaceted range of different qualifications. Altogether it has developed into a “partial VET system“, favored by many of the providers concerned.

The transition system is a considerable threat to the dual system: these initiatives developed into a not intended parallel system, which is too much funded and does not meet its original targets. The transition system became a “safekeeping” or just “holding” system for young people instead of preparing them for dual apprenticeship. It provides only qualifications for less demanding work places which are constantly decreasing in numbers in Germany….More and more the situation has developed into a structural conflict between two sub-systems, with no solution so far." Extracts from pp.3;7 (Part 3. “Structure and role of the training system”) and pp.11-12 (Part 4. “Dual system and transition system: A critical development”)

Bibliographic indications
"Innovations in Vocational Education and Training –a Successful Paradigm Shift within the Dual System in Germany", Georg Spöttl, Lars Windelband, ITB-Forschungsberichte 52/2013, March 2013