Palatinate Chamber of Skilled Crafts hosts Swiss vocational education and training experts

The visitors included trainers and teachers from various Swiss schools and training centres who were completing a degree alongside their work at the university. They themselves instruct trainees in the trades of carpentry, apparel, ophthalmic optics, mechanics and machining technology.

The delegation led by Dr. Marliese Kammermann from the training research and development department at SFUVET visited the Palatinate Chamber of Skilled Crafts' vocational training and technology centre in Kaiserslautern. The group was accompanied by the Rector of the University of Applied Labour Studies (HdBA), Prof. Andreas Frey.

Managing Director Dr. Till Mischler welcomed the visitors and outlined the structures of the skilled crafts organisation and also the tasks of a Chamber of Skilled Crafts. Director Rita Petry, who is responsible for the vocational education and training area, explained the model of dual vocational education and training and of continuing and advanced VET in the skilled trades in Germany. In the discussion which followed, differences and common features came to light between German and Swiss vocational education and training. Basic vocational education in Switzerland, for example, takes between two and four years while in Germany the training generally lasts for three to three and a half years.
Essentially, vocational education and training in Switzerland has a high status; over recent years around two thirds of school leavers opted for vocational education and training. Kammermann explained that this figure has now dropped to around 60 percent, which means that in Switzerland there is also an increasing demand for new workers.

During a tour of the workshops, the participants learnt about the inter-company training at the training centre. Visitors were particularly interested in the digital technology used in training, such as the virtual welding. The second day of the visit was rounded off with a tour of the Chamber of Skilled Crafts' careers guidance workshop in Altenhof. Following this, the "media educator" and "ÜLU+" (inter-company trainee instruction+) projects were introduced. These supplement the Chamber of Skilled Crafts’ inter-company training with media and social education support.