Vocational education and training from the division of Germany to unification – common roots, different pathways

Even though vocational education and training in the GDR functioned according to the state's fundamental principles of partisanship, planned economy, centralisation, etc., it was still compatible in its essentials with that in the Federal Republic. How else can the seemingly noiseless transition of a "socialist system of vocational education and training" to the West German one that started in 1990 be explained? After giving a historical overview of the VET system in the GDR and a comparison with that in the FRG, the paper makes it clear that there is still a lot of potential for VET research and policy, calling for this part of German vocational education and training history to be addressed.