Special Focus: Skills training "made in Germany" meets growing international demand

iMOVE Trend Barometer confirms expanding internationalisation of German training providers

What are the current trends of international training demand? Which countries are most interested in German training expertise? What is the recipe for successful international cooperation?

Answers to these and more questions are given by iMOVE’s Trend Barometer 2009. The iMOVE Trend Barometer is conducted annually among 100 top managers of German vocational education and training organisations and is the primary source of data regarding international activities of German training providers. The objective of the survey is to gather the latest market data in order to estimate the current scale of internationalisation of the German education and training sector and to forecast future trends.

According to the survey which was published this month, about 10 per cent of all German training providers have already offered their services on an international scale. 58 per cent of all companies surveyed start business abroad because international partners, mostly from the private sector (39 per cent), get in touch with them. The development over the last three years shows that the number of international requests for German training services constantly increases. The average German training provider already realises 24 per cent of its turnover internationally. Vocational education and training from Germany enjoys an excellent reputation worldwide. For this reason the number of interested parties constantly increases. 57 per cent of the respondents see more opportunities abroad than in the domestic market.

The survey also shows that the services of small and medium-sized enterprises are in high demand which mainly offer tailor-made solutions for specific training requirements. Almost one third of the German training providers with less than 100 employees benefits from international activities already within the first year.

The majority of the companies is active in Eastern Europe (54 per cent) and Asia (53 per cent). In their view China offers the best opportunities, but also India as well as the Arab region, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are highly interesting markets on the rise. The most successful training projects are carried out with partners from China and Turkey.

Traditionally, technical training from Germany is in great demand. But more and more partners from abroad start to ask for management training services also, especially in those regions of the world where the technical standards of production are already high.

Networking, personal contacts and intercultural competencies are the most important success factors for transnational cooperations in the field of vocational education and training.