Apprenticeship training in Germany - still a future-oriented model for recruiting skilled workers?

Abstract

The apprenticeship training system in Germany, where training takes place in both private companies and vocational schools, has traditionally played an outstanding role in the development of young skilled workers. However, particularly since the start of the new millennium, the chances of smooth transition from secondary school to an apprenticeship have worsened. As a consequence, there has been an intensive political and academic discussion about whether the German dual vocational training system is still in keeping with the times. In the following, we will examine whether apprenticeship training can continue to be the primary model for recruiting skilled workers. It will be shown that the insufficient number of apprenticeship places in recent years is less the result of any supposed obsolescence of this training system than of the close link between the apprenticeship system and the employment system. © 2011 The Vocational Aspect of Education Ltd.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Vocational training Sustainability labor demand Transition from school to apprenticeship

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations

Department of Sociology and Economics of Vocational Education and Training, Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, Bonn, Germany

Funding & Acknowledgements

Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales, BMAS

Using federal and state funding programmes that provide government subsidies, repeated attempts have been made to increase the amount of apprenticeship training being provided. Of particular importance in this connection is the financial assistance currently provided by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the form of the so-called training bonus. Enterprises that offer added apprenticeships can receive subsidies ranging from € 4000 to € 6000 for their provision of additional apprenticeship training. However, experience to date shows that this and other programmes have only a limited quantitative effect (Troltsch, Gericke, and Saxer 2008). The training bonus programme of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs was launched in 2008 with the aim of subsidising a total of 100,000 apprenticeships. However, the actual number of subsidised apprenticeships was still fewer than 20,000 as of mid-2009. It is clear from this example that it is very difficult to directly influence enterprises’ training decisions through financial subsidies. We attribute this to the fact that the provision of apprenticeship training – as our findings on the dual vocational training system’s dependency on the employment system verify – is closely linked to enterprises’ business processes and is the result of the relatively stable considerations underlying business decisions.

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Apprenticeship training in Germany - still a future-oriented model for recruiting skilled workers?

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