Foreign languages are a must

44 students of the Richard-von-Weizsaecker vocational college in Luedinghausen (Germany) reaped the fruit of their work which had taken them several weeks. They voluntarily registered to obtain the "foreign language certificate by the Conference of Ministers of Education of the Federal States" (KMK certificate) – and did so successfully. The young men and women received their personal certificates at the end of June.

The KMK certificate refers to foreign languages in vocational education. The examination is conducted since 1988 on the basis of the "Common European Framework of Reference for Languages" – a designated framework by the Council of Europe to assess language skills – as the only certificate with a distinctive reference to a number of training occupations. It is approved worldwide.

As occupation-related language skills become increasingly important in times of merging economic areas, the vocational college in Luedinghausen has been offering its students the opportunity of obtaining the foreign language certificate since 2000.