News about VET from Germany

On occasion of the federal government's Second Demography Summit, the German Federal Minister of Economics Philipp Rösler highlighted the significance of a sufficiently large number of skilled professionals.

According to the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, gender distribution has hardly changed since 2005. However, women prove to be more flexible than men. They are more likely to decide on a male-dominated job than vice versa.

"Blended Learning in Prison" (BLiS) has received the Xenos Stabilisation Award. The award recognises the work of the Institute for Education in the Information Society (IBI), an independent institute at the Technische Universität Berlin.

In the recently published business report by the German Federal Employment Agency it is printed black on white: "The acquisition of professional qualifications remains the first and foremost goal." It states that the long-term and sustained integration of low-qualified people will continue to play a central part in the coming years.

The goal of iMOVE networking events is to create a network of training providers, industrial companies and further service providers with business interests in specific countries.

First vocational education and training, then a study course. The old model once again gains in popularity. Increasingly, an apprenticeship even becomes the key to the lecture room.

German-Italian cooperation in vocational education and training is taking concrete shape. At its inaugural meeting in Bologna, a bilateral working group resolved the joint development and implementation of a total of five projects in the fields of mechatronics, renewable energies and transport and logistics.

German enterprises abroad often encounter catastrophic standards as regards vocational education and training. By now, they choose to ensure early training of their young talent at their production sites in Asia, Eastern Europe and the USA by providing training themselves.

Working on behalf of the Federal Government and acting in conjunction with the social partners and with experts from the field of company practice, the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) has now updated the regulations governing the three-and-a-half years of training in the occupation "plant technologist".