News about VET from Germany

Hardly anybody knows their occupation, yet almost everybody knows their work: geomatics engineers are the heads behind the navigation system in the car, the world map above the kitchen table and the bicycle trail map on the front rack.

The chambers of industry and commerce, the chambers of crafts and the economic chambers in Germany, Luxemburg and Austria now have issued a joint declaration in favour of increased European educational co-operation throughout Europe.

After Spain and Portugal, Italy now is likewise interested in the dual vocational education and training system. In Naples, Federal Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen and her Italian colleague Elsa Fornero have signed a memorandum, which provides for exporting the successful German apprenticeship model to Italy.

This year, the "First European Elephant Management School" celebrates its tenth anniversary. What sounds like a strange continuing education course for thick-skinned managers and corporate grey eminences, is a programme for elephant keepers from all over the world.

In an international survey, 80 per cent of respondent human resources (HR) executives stated that today, their employees have to undergo continuing education more often and faster than only five years ago.

The 5th "Röpke Symposium", which took place in December 2012 in Düsseldorf, criticised the belief in academic education which persists in policy and institutions and called for greater appreciation of vocational training in Germany.

Be it a rhetoric seminar, Business English course or extra-occupational study course: Without regular continuing education, the job market offers only dim perspectives. Many employees therefore use the opportunities provided by adult education centres and private institutes to update their knowledge and competencies.

Without craftsmen and -women, we would be out in the cold without walls and a ceiling to shelter us. By employing this picture, Klaus Lamprecht, Mayor of the City of Suhl, raised awareness for the high significance of the crafts during his welcoming speech on occasion of this year's master craftsman graduation ceremony at the Chamber of Crafts South Thuringia.

During the event "Integration through Vocational Education and Training" in Berlin, the Parliamentary State Secretary and Federal Government Commissioner for SMEs and Tourism, Ernst Burgbacher, and the Turkish Ambassador to Germany, Hüseyin Avni Karslioglu, have launched the German-Turkish joint campaign for the improved apprenticeship placement of Turkish young people.