The Board of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) has issued an Official Statement regarding a decision taken by the Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs in the Federal Republic of Germany (KMK) at the end of November.
In its Statement, the BIBB Board expresses the view that the Resolution adopted by the KMK with regard to the structuring of the German Qualifications Framework (usually referred to by its German language abbreviation of "DQR") to align the upper secondary school leaving certificate/general higher education entrance qualification to Level 5, a higher reference level than many vocational education and training qualifications, is "not justified in terms of content and not clearly substantiated".
Should the Resolution be retained in unaltered form, the BIBB Board - which is also referred to as the "Parliament of Vocational Education and Training" - fears that dual vocational education and training will suffer a loss of attractiveness and that negative consequences will occur for the securing of young skilled workers across all areas of trade and industry.
"The danger is that fewer and fewer young people in possession of a university entrance qualification will opt for vocational education and training if it is implied to them that their school leaving qualification is superior to a vocational qualification."
For this reason, the members of the BIBB Board call upon the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs to "rethink and correct their decision".
The BIBB Board, the Federal Government, the Conference of the Ministers of Economic Affairs of the Federal States, the social partners and the major trade and industry organisations are unanimous in their support for the equal alignment of the upper secondary school leaving certificate and of three and three-and-a-half year training occupations at reference level 4 of the DQR.
The DQR, which needs to be developed across all educational areas by next year, operates in the same way as the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) - with which the German Qualifications Framework needs to be closely interlinked - by mapping qualifications on an eight-level scale. The aim of implementing these qualification frameworks is to establish qualification standards in Europe which will act as a vehicle for fostering transparency and mobility, for increasing permeability between the various educational areas and for achieving the equivalence of general, higher and vocational education.
The BIBB Board has the statutory duty to advise the Federal Government in all fundamental issues relating to vocational education and training. The Board has equal representation from employers and employer associations, the federal states and the Federal Government.