Previously, by far the greater part of the working population was trained within the dual system and its focus on practical application. Now, half of all school graduates continue with an academic education focusing on theory. The industry in the Federal State of Hesse therefore demands adaptation of the education system to the current requirements after having remained the same for decades.
"Our education system currently aggravates the skilled labour shortage. As long as theoretical university education and practice-oriented dual system vocational education and training co-exist without much permeability and even increasingly compete with each other, we will gamble away the exemplary success of the German dual system of vocational education and training. We moreover produce significant numbers of university drop-outs. This is why the VhU is in favour of merging the education systems to form one joint system that lifts access barriers and unifies theoretical and practical learning", says Volker Fasbender, Chief Executive Officer of the Vereinigung der hessischen Unternehmerverbände (VhU - Federation of Hessian Entrepreneurs Associations). For this purpose, he says, the VhU has developed a 5-step programme:
- Opening up of universities for skilled trade workers without university entrance qualification and without proof of professional practice. This can be independently decided by the Hesse State Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts.
- For this, we need a "vocational university entrance qualification", that is, an approximately 6-month additional programme for apprentices at vocational colleges, which proves their eligibility for university: of variable scope depending on the vocational training occupation, offering general university or university of applied sciences entrance qualification and which can be completed either as part of the apprenticeship or afterwards. Here, the Hesse State Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs can independently set new standards.
- To accommodate occupational practitioners, the university courses have to be reorganised and academic education has to be linked more with vocational career advancement programmes. This is something the universities themselves can autonomously decide.
- The universities will have to offer extra-occupational modules that meet academic standards as well as bachelor and master degrees for occupational practitioners. The first steps towards this have been made at universities. The Hesse State Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts can expedite this development by target agreements.
- Vocational colleges have to refocus on their core task, that is, dual system vocational education and training, and consistently cut back on their educational programmes that compete with the dual system of vocational education and training. To achieve this, the Hesse State Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs has to execute its policy-making power.
The VhU and the industry in Hesse want to render dual system vocational education and training desirable also for those youths, who wish to keep open their options for an academic education. However, the surge of academic education contains the risk of 50 per cent of school graduates attaining theoretical university qualifications, which in that form are not in demand in the employment market.