Vocational training for the highly talented - a success story

The continuing education scholarship "Stiftung für Begabtenförderung" (Foundation for Support for the Gifted and Talented) for young career entrants was established more than 20 years ago. Since then, more than 96,000 young professionals in Germany have profited from the support towards their professional qualification.

The aim of the scholarship for the highly talented, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, is to support talented young professionals independent of their chosen educational path, so that they can transform their talent into top performance.

The Karlsruhe Chamber of Crafts has likewise adopted the goal of providing occupational support for young journeymen and -women in the first years after their apprenticeship; it has been involved in implementing the sponsorship programme since the beginning.

Since 1991, 600 young tradesmen and -women from the chamber's district have been accepted into the sponsorship programme. A total of about 1.5 million Euro was available for supporting their continuing education measures during that time.

The Karlsruhe Chamber of Crafts currently accepts 25 young journeymen and -women per year into the sponsorship programme. The scholarship is available to qualified graduates of a dual system vocational education and training course who are younger than 25 years upon acceptance into the sponsorship programme.

They have to prove their qualification by way of a final apprenticeship examination result of 1.9 ("good") or better, successful participation in a cross-regional vocational competition or by way of a substantiated nomination by either an enterprise or their vocational college.

Depending on the qualification programme, support grants of up to 6,000 Euro over the course of three years may be paid for financing extra-occupational continuing education. The scholarship holder pays a share of ten per cent of the eligible costs per measure.

In 2014, the Karlsruhe Chamber of Crafts again accepted 25 young journeymen and -women into the sponsorship programme. The Karlsruhe Chamber of Crafts has at its disposal a total of 80,000 Euro from the Stiftung für Begabtenförderung for the current class of scholarship holders.