The specialists for leather processing occupy a small, exclusive niche in the world of occupations requiring vocational training. In the whole of Germany, some 60 apprentices are trained as shoe experts each year, most of which are women. Now the vocational training has been reorganised.
With its initiative of regularly presenting companies that provide vocational training, the Chamber of Crafts Koblenz acknowledges the exemplary commitment to providing vocational training on part of its 18,845 member businesses.
Companies not only once again invest to a greater degree in the qualification of their employees. In the long term, one can in particular observe the trend of their growing interest in integrating the learning and qualification processes into the operational processes.
For most pupils, the transition from school to a professional career poses a great challenge. The schools already employ a host of approaches to prepare young people for their search for a vocational training position. Frequently, however, the pupils are neither equipped with the knowledge about the right behaviour during an interview nor towards superiors and colleagues in the working environment.
The crafts businesses in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg want to employ more personnel but well-qualified specialists are rare. In the competitive quest for these skilled personnel the businesses focus on further training.
In German enterprises "Mobile Learning" is about to become the main pillar of digital learning – in addition to "Blended Learning", which is regarded as having the greatest significance for continuing education within enterprises also in the future. This is the result of the trend study MMB Learning Delphi 2011.
Successful innovations originate within a team. German researchers and developers working within enterprises and research institutions advance their inventions only in cooperation with qualified trained personnel. The dual vocational training system guarantees the professional and social qualification of employees.
According to Barbara Fabian, expert for European Union's (EU) education policy at the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), one of the reasons for the lack of perspective on part of many British young people lies in the absence of a good vocational training system in the United Kingdom.
The pilot initiative DECVET, currently in its testing phase, aims at rendering comparable with each other the knowledge, capabilities and competences acquired at different institutions in Germany.
