Education and Cultural Affairs State Secretary Marion von Wartenberg visits the Berufliche Schulzentrum vocational school and acquaints herself with current vocational training courses at the workshops of the Steinbeis und Kerschensteiner schools.
She seeks the dialogue with pupils, listens to the technical teachers and promotes her education policy. Vocational education and training is one of the key fields of activity of the 57-year-old social democratic politician, who is a qualified nursery nurse, unionist as well as a qualified occupational therapist and pastor.
Pupils at vocational schools are the skilled labour of tomorrow, so urgently needed by the industry; the Stuttgart-born politician knows this, which is why she spoke to the human resource manager of the company Wafios prior to visiting the Schulzentrum.
"We have to develop dual system vocational education and training into an attractive model" – this is her credo. This should help to not only retain skilled professionals, but to increasingly recruit them.
At the vocational school, she is given a fast tour of the workshops of automotive mechatronics fitters, tool makers and electronics fitters at the Ferdinand-von-Steinbeis-Schule and through the carpentry workshop at the Kerschensteinerschule.
Von Wartenberg collects impressions and the mood in face of the impending educational plan reform. "How can the working world be illustrated better and when will this optimally take place?", she asks the practitioners. Education policy is not just an armchair decision, she says.
"We want to increase the attractiveness of the skilled trades", she emphasises. Master carpenters and teachers Matthias Lutz and Rainer Teufel agree that missing skilled labour can be recruited also from amongst immigrants. They report that the first refugees from Gambia now have passed their journeyman examination.
Initially, the apprentices spoke hardly a word of German. "We have to provide refugees with German language skills as fast as possible and train them", von Wartenberg says later.
School and apprenticeship are "an opportunity for migrants and businesses, both have to understand this", she emphasises. The Politician views the skilled trades as providing "a real opportunity for integration". The aim is to introduce talented, high-performing refugees to this new world by way of work placements.
This actually already takes place, says Steinbeis Headmaster Rolf König. He will now drive two foreign interns to the businesses, "they have to find their own way back".