The education system needs to become more equal, permeable and sustainable. In a joint position paper, the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH) and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Alliance '90/The Greens) have mapped out goals and measures to prepare the vocational training system to meet the challenges of the skilled labour shortage.
They declared, that the aim ought to be to provide compulsory vocational school attendance for all young people, who are ready for vocational training but have failed to obtain an apprenticeship placement. The time thus spent then is to be counted towards the regular vocational training course once the students have entered into an apprenticeship.
It is forecasted that by 2020, the number of young people graduating from school with a General Certificate of Secondary Education will decline by 20 per cent. Although in-company vocational training continues to be very popular with many school graduates – at present, some 60 per cent of graduates from each year aim at entering the dual vocational training system –, the industry now needs to prepare well in advance to balance the future lack of students. It is necessary to prepare more young people to enter into the labour market, but as yet this still requires overcoming rather large impediments.
ZDH and Alliance '90/The Greens have put together a joint position paper on the current situation of educational policy in order to point to future challenges and to present potential solutions. One of their demands is for the need to render the educational system more open-minded in general. A larger number of young people from the educationally disadvantaged strata of society and more migrants need to be won over for an apprenticeship in the crafts. In addition, the links between vocational and academic education would require improving.
To improve the starting opportunities for all children in the educational system, ZDH and Alliance '90/The Greens demand a legal claim for publicly funded all-day care also for children under three years of age as well as the country-wide development of all-day schools. This is to promote also the reconcilability of work and family with the effect of retaining more employees for the labour market. The children from socially disadvantaged families in particular are to benefit from support from an early age on and children with a migration background are to benefit from early language training.
Lack of sufficient advisory services
The all-day schools are to prepare young people to an even greater degree for a potential occupation. As yet, however, there is a lack of sufficient advisory services. Also, teachers are as yet likewise not sufficiently trained to provide practice-oriented vocational advice, a service, which according to the position paper ought to make an integral part of lessons at all schools providing general education.
If pupils were to know at an early stage which occupation they would like to train for upon graduating from school, the schools would be able to adapt their teaching in a more targeted manner and transitionary periods between school and a professional career could be used more appropriately.
Therefore, ZDH and Alliance '90/The Greens write, politics ought to aim also at allowing for the "compulsory vocational school attendance for young people who are ready for vocational training but fail to enter regular vocational training". Yet if the young people complete this time at vocational school already studying the occupation they aim at, the attendance of classes ought to be counted also towards regular vocational training, demand ZDH and Alliance '90/The Greens.
Another important aspect highlighted by the crafts and green politicians is the integration of people with migration background into the vocational training system. It is agreed that the new Federal Recognition Act to improve the assessment and recognition of foreign professional qualifications that has come into effect only recently is an important step towards recruiting more skilled labour for occupations in the crafts. However, in order for this law to yield results, they identify the need for providing now also new adaptation and additional qualification propositions.
Linking of theory and practice still missing
Continuing education is an important key word in general throughout the position paper. The future demand for skilled labour can be satisfied only by way of corresponding offers in this field. Here, ZDH and Alliance '90/The Greens demand to focus on the "performance resources of the German labour market, including migrants, older citizens and women".
In this field, too, the potential of lesser qualified people needs to be utilised more. All stakeholders are therefore responsible for improving the vocational training system with regard to the increasing demands placed on it by globalisation, demographic change, the transition to a service-oriented economy and the existing social problems and issues.
On the whole, there is a lack of suitable structures and propositions in practice. More migrants into the crafts, motivating more early school leavers to start an apprenticeship and promoting the continuing education of skilled workers – all this sounds good in theory. Yet training providers, teachers and schools as a whole need to be able to put this into practice.
Here, the linking of theory and practice seems to still be missing. Teachers are to act also as career advisors and businesses are to motivate their employees with regard to continuing education and, if possible, send their apprentices abroad for a wider experience. These are the goals the position paper intends to give impetus to.