Many upper secondary school leavers find vocational training unappealing. Formats like Triale Studies give training a boost.
Fewer and fewer youngsters are being inspired to enter vocational training. Triale Studies offer one opportunity for upgrading vocational training: The combination of a traineeship, master of trade qualification and bachelor studies is designed to appeal to youngsters with upper secondary school leaving certificates – and to prepare them for a career in management.
The Vocational Training Report of 2015 has clearly shown that companies are finding it increasingly difficult to find suitable candidates: for the last training year, the number of traineeships left unfilled reached record levels and at the same time, the number of applicants who did not find a place has fallen.
In order to compete with the attraction of full-time study, companies offering traineeships and training schools have to meet the challenge of making training courses more appealing – by modernising curricula and enriching content.
One very promising approach is "Triale Studies": in this approach, not only is conventional initial training carried out in conjunction with a bachelor degree – as is the case with dual higher education – but trainees also have the opportunity to take a master of trade qualification.
The target group for these studies are youngsters with upper secondary school leaving certificates who, for example, would like to become qualified to work in management later on.
This concept has been around for five years and youngsters with upper secondary school leaving certificates can prepare for a career in management on one of two Triale Studies programmes: on the trade management business administration studies programme at the state Hochschule Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences in Mönchengladbach, which is being launched in the coming winter semester; or on a programme with the same name being run at the privately run University of Applied Sciences for small and medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Cologne.
A glance at the curricula shows that Triale Studies are highly demanding for the students: on both programmes, they are even expected to be in class on Friday evenings and on the weekend. Alongside their studies, they generally work like any other member of staff at their companies; in fact, most of the students on the course in Cologne actually work full time.
Despite the high expectations, the entire crop of students from Cologne saw their course out to the end, reported journalist Winfried Gertz, who had visited the colleges and companies on behalf of publication "Personalmagazin", and was quoting head of studies, professor Sascha Lord.
Triale students who have undergone this kind of training appear to be in demand on the labour market: in Lord's opinion, Triale students take a far more practical approach than their peer groups from other courses and show greater willingness to work hard, reports Gertz.
The overwhelming majority of the first group of students were recruited from family companies which wanted to prepare their children to take over the family business, Gertz explained. With obvious success: since 2010, around 100 participants have enrolled on the programme and the University of Applied Sciences for SMEs is planning to offer the programme at additional locations in the future.
In addition to young people preparing to take over the family business, other target groups include those who have decided not to complete their university courses (whom companies are keen to recruit).
Triale Studies present new opportunities all round, in particular in the fields covered by vocational education and training, which are often considered as not particularly appealing. "Nobody wants to work on a building site anymore," said Gertz, quoting master roofer Jost Presuhn, in whose company a former university student is currently doing an apprenticeship.
Presuhn has high hopes of the benefits taking the student on as a trainee will bring, according to Gertz. "It is not only the new recruit's business knowledge which could be useful to the company. I'm sure that during the training that we'll benefit from his personal qualities too," Presuhn told Gertz.