BWP Special Edition 2007
Promoting Innovations in Vocational Education and Training - An Exchange of German Experiences
Foreword
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Georg Hanf; Gisela Dybowski; Matthias Walter
BIBB international – A strategy paper for the internationalisation of German vocational education and training
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The process of internationalisation has gathered pace in recent years, spreading through one area of society after another and posing new challenges, not least for vocational education and training (VET). The growing globalisation of the economy and the rapid process of European integration towards a single market for education and employment have given rise to a radically new situation. National VET systems are caught in a cross-current between the imperative of international competition and the necessity for cross-border cooperation. At the same time, there are increasingly stringent requirements for the planning of VET to embrace a European and an international outlook. The paper explains the action to be taken by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) in response to these developments.
Manfred Kremer
Provincialism or a world-class system?
Is German vocational education and training fit for internationalisation?
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In the current debate on a possible reform of the education systems, the President of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, Manfred Kremer, calls for a greater flexibility of pathways, especially easier transistions between vocational education and higher education. The European Qualfications Framework (EQF) and the European Credit System in Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) are viewed as an opportunity to redress the undervaluing of in-company vocational training in Europe.
Reinhold Weiß
Quality is the best recipe!
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The article explains, why also in a time when in-company training places are in short supply, the issue of quality should be put on the agenda.
Reinhold Weiß
Permeability: Much remains to be done
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Although some progress has been achieved, a whole series of barriers remain to be overcome in the endeavour for greater permeability. Against this backdrop, the Deputy President and Head of Research at BIBB, Prof. Dr. Reinhold Weiß, points out the different facets of permeability that are relevant for vocational education and training.
Kerstin Mucke
Credit transfer for permeability
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Work has gone on for some time in Germany at national level to promote permeability between educational pathways, but with limited impact. Developments at European level to establish a credit points system across all sectors of education could now support efforts to bring about greater permeability, by enabling credit transfer for prior learning. This article will examine the thrust of this new orientation, the prerequisites that would be necessary for implementation, the current status of developments and the thematic issues that remain to be addressed.
Herold Gross; Philipp Grollmann
The European "Training of Trainers Network" TTnet and its German section "TTnet Germany"
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The quality of general and vocational education systems depends to a large degree on the quality of teaching staff. Europe needs a pool of competent, motivated and committed VET staff who are capable of mastering challenges of ever-increasing complexity. This article presents the European Network TTNet: the "Training of Trainers Network". TTNet is a network set up and moderated by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, Cedefop, and aimed at teaching and training staff in vocational education. Taking the structure and activities of this network as a starting point, the article presents key functions of its European and national-level networks and some perspectives of their work.
Hans-Joachim Kissling
Cooperation of BIBB with international partners
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Exchanging experience across national boarders is of ever increasing importance, especially in the field of vocational education and training (VET), considering the challenges posed by globalisation. In keeping with its legal remit, the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) cooperates with VET institutions around the world. The current focal areas of BIBB's international work are projects relating to comparative and transfer research, involvement in the process of European VET policy, and advisory services for the international education market. This article begins by looking at the position of BIBB in the international context, and goes on to report on a partners' meeting convened by BIBB and attended by 16 VET institutions from various countries in Europe. This provided a host of opportunities for exchanging views on current issues in European VET.
Gisela Dybowski
Knowledge transfer through consulting - A service provided by BIBB in international vocational education and training
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The growing challenges facing international cooperation in vocational education and training (VET) are what prompted BIBB (Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training) five years ago to reposition itself in the field of international VET. The foundations for the Institute's medium-term activities in international VET were agreed in 2001 with the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and laid out in a "Strategy paper on the internationalisation of VET".
Ulrike Schröder
Learning foreign languages in companies that provide in-house vocational training - Exemplary strategies
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The importance of "Europeanizing" vocational training - and concomitantly the need to teach foreign languages on an occupation-related basis - has grown significantly in recent years. The work programme that was formulated on the basis of the Lisbon strategy and approved by the EU education ministers and the European Commission back in 2002 cites the promotion of foreign language learning as one of the 13 key objectives that European education policy is to implement by the year 2010.
Dietmar Zielke
Vocational Training Preparation - A new concept of vocational preparation for learning- impaired and socially disadvantaged young people
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Vocational preparation schemes are in a state of upheaval. The present public employment services measures will merge into three qualification levels of a new concept. Up to now the legislators have formulated clearly delineated guidelines for vocational preparation schemes as an integral part of the Vocational Education and Training Act (BBiG) and introduced a new term for them, Vocational Training Preparation. This article will show some of the differences between Vocational Training preparation and the new concept of the public employment services. It will show some of the reasons for the existing differences and at the same time indicate some of the preconditions for resolving them.
Johannes Koch; Gert Zinke; Anke Bahl; Egon Meerten
What does it mean to provide process-oriented training?
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The new training regulations stipulate the demand for "process-oriented" implementation of training, with the goal of simplifying the adaptation of training to the requirements of industrial work processes and the rapid technological and organisational transformations. The current regulations specify business tasks which are described in general terms, and the enterprises have to provide the clear definition of the content themselves. This article describes the consequences for the implementation of training which arise from process orientation and designates the new tasks connected with it and the skills requirements for the personnel involved.
Dagmar Lennartz
The examinations field of action - Interim evaluation and future prospects
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Examination can be a motive force and a supporter of system development but they can also be a restraint and a drag on it. In the past 30 years, examinations have placed both of those roles for "Training in Occupations". In the first ten years the were a central means of developing quality assurance in vocational education and training, but subsequently they increasingly came under fire from all sides. The dual system of vocational education and training was undergoing allround modernisation, but there was little change in examination practice. However, things have begun to move in the field of vocational examinations in the last five years. Innovations in examination models and examination structures have largely exhausted the possibilities of the traditional examination system. The changes in the examination system introduced up to now are therefore not the end but rather the beginning of an overdue process of reform.
Ursula Beicht; Hermann Herget; Günter Walden
Costs and benefits of in-company vocational training
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In-company vocational education and training activities are not an end in themselves. In fact, they should bring about concrete benefits for the company. Vocational training can therefore be seen as an investment which has to yield a worthwhile return on costs in the long term. In a study by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), a representative survey was conducted of some 2,500 companies involved in vocational training in the year 2001, in order to analyse the costs and benefits of training. It found that companies which directly provide in-company vocational training reap benefits on a substantial scale.