Cooperating as equals

Vocational education and higher education offer different, in part also competing educational pathways. Looking beyond the sometimes agitated debate about the competition between the two systems, what matters is building bridges. Because both sectors can learn from one another; in which case, vocational education must be a fully-fledged system, recognised as an educational phase of equal status.

In 2009 the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder (Kultusministerkonferenz, KMK) gave an important impulse with its resolution on access to higher education studies for people with vocational qualifications. It resulted in a notable rise in the number of students without a conventional higher education entrance qualification: the count has almost tripled since 2007.

This development is gratifying – even if low-level in comparison to other European countries. It shows that the target group has a very definite interest in tertiary level study, particularly at universities of applied sciences. At the same time, reports from practice also highlight more problematic areas: these include academic counselling, credit transfer for prior qualifications, the provision of bridging courses or the organisation of studies. The Federal Government has taken action in a flanking role with programmes and funding measures for these areas. Nevertheless, further research and action is needed.

Dual degree courses are a successful model. Growth can be noted particularly in the integrated-practice study courses, whereas integrated-training models have declined in importance. In many cases the formal, content-related and time stipulations bound up with the Vocational Training Act (BBiG), the initial vocational training regulations and mandatory part-time vocational school attendance are quite difficult to bring into harmony with the requirements of an academic degree programme.

Meanwhile the advantages of duality in the integrated-practice study courses are not fully exploited. The legal safeguards for learners are unclear; moreover, there are no minimum standards governing the implementation of the in-company learning phases, such as exist in dual system initial vocational training in the form of specified learning objectives and qualification requirements for training staff. The development of such standards cannot be left to the higher education institutions or the accreditation agencies. This is a core task for the major stakeholders of vocational education and training.

To foster permeability it is necessary to grant mutual recognition for prior learning and to award credit towards each other’s courses. In the context of courses run in cooperation, or training and degree programmes which build upon each other directly (for example in health and social care) this is already being practised. In the vast majority of cases, however, recognition and credit transfer is based on individual review procedures. Blanket recognition and credit transfer arrangements have remained the exception.

The Vocational Training Act provides the basis for such review procedures but does not prescribe them in any mandatory form. Blanket credit transfer arrangements could, for example, be implemented through agreements between the stakeholders and flanked by recommendations of the Board of Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, BIBB).

Cooperation between vocational education and training and higher education still harbours a great deal of potential. In order to harness this for the purposes of attractive, high-quality skilled worker training, the stakeholders of vocational and higher education alike are called upon to approach one another and to cooperate with each other as equals.

Source: Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, bibb.de, newsletter 3/2015, editorial by Prof. Reinhold Weiss (Vice-President of the BIBB), July 2014