Vocational education data: First university entrance qualification, then apprenticeship

A record at German universities: some 2.5 million students currently are enrolled. At the same time, current data shows that an increasing number of pupils graduating with a university entrance qualification decide against going to university and choose an apprenticeship instead.

Export hit from Germany? Cars and machines, of course. But the dual vocational education and training system likewise steadily climbs up the hit list.

An increasing number of apprentices in Germany holds a university entrance qualification. In 2011, almost every fifth person commencing a vocational education and training course could have alternatively chosen to study at a university or university of applied sciences, say the statisticians. Since 2005, they say, the number of apprentices holding a university entrance qualification has steadily increased from 17.7 per cent to 22.1 per cent.

This is mostly due to the fact that the number of persons eligible for studying at university has increased in total, they say. In 2011, this increase was particularly dramatic: In Bavaria and Lower Saxony, two age groups did their university-entrance diploma at the same time and conscription was abolished. A hitherto unseen number of first semester students flooded the German universities. Some university entrance qualification graduates decided to rather start a vocational education and training course. However, the rush on apprenticeships was less than the one hitting the universities.

In 2011, a total of 741,000 persons took up a vocational education and training course. According to the calculations of the Federal Statistical Office, 524,000 decided on a dual vocational education and training course, combining practical work in an enterprise and study at a vocational school. Others chose, for example, training at vocational colleges to become wood sculptors, foreign language assistants, chefs or physiotherapists. Vocational college courses usually run over one to three years, have a stronger emphasis on school training and are not remunerated.

Almost every second apprentice finished middle school and approximately every fourth completed the Hauptschule (lower secondary modern school). 2.6 per cent had no school leaving certificate.