Following a three-year training programme, precisely 183 trainees in hearing aid acoustics from all over Germany recently passed their final apprenticeship exam at the Academy of Hearing Aid Acoustics, thus achieving journeyman status as qualified apprentices.
The young acousticians received their journeyman diplomas immediately after passing the exam. Five hundred guests attended the graduation ceremony in Lübeck's Kolosseum concert hall, where Günther Stapelfeldt, President of the Lübeck Chamber of Craft Trades, gave the welcome address.
"These young journeymen and women have chosen a future-proof career", says Jürgen Matthies, Vice President of the Federal Guild of Hearing Aid Specialists (biha). "It is a challenging healthcare profession in which no two days will be the same, since it combines technical, medical and manual skills like no other."
The excellent training really pays off. Almost all the graduates already have an employment contract in the bag, with the majority staying on at the organisations where they have trained, only this time as journeymen. They can then take further training to master craftsman level and specialise at a later date. Well-trained hearing aid specialists are in high demand.