Vocational training for disabled persons

Recommendations issued by BIBB Board set new standards

When youths are unable to undergo formal vocational training provided pursuant to the training regulations currently in force for a particular occupation due to a severe disability, vocational training can be adapted to meet the special needs of disabled trainees.

Over the years, the competent bodies in Germany - usually the chambers of industry and commerce, chambers of crafts and trades or chambers of agriculture - have approved nearly 1,000 'training arrangements', some of which have different designations for the final qualification or different training content than foreseen by regular training regulations.

As expedient as each training arrangement may be for integrating disabled youths into society, comparability and transparency are lost in the face of such a large number of individual arrangements. Seeking to reduce this 'proliferation', the Board of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) has adopted the first occupation-specific model training arrangements for the occupational fields Sales, Domestic Science, Metal-Working, Office and Wood.

The recommendations issued by the BIBB Board - which is also called the 'parliament of vocational education and training' - outline national standards, giving the competent bodies important orientation for the training arrangements they issue.

This framework arrangement provides for the following on a uniform, national basis in the area of training arrangements: individualised education plans, additional qualification in the area of rehabilitation pedagogics for trainers, requirements for in-company training content, vocational competence as the objective of the vocational training programme, uniform, non-discriminatory occupational designations and compatibility which allows the individual to progress to a formal vocational training programme in a recognised occupation that requires completion of formal vocational training.