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In addition to the role it plays in preparing both the Report on Vocational Education and Training and the vocational education and training statistics, the BIBB makes a major contribution to vocational education and training research as a result of its varied research activities. This BWP issue provides an insight into the extensive data sets which are analysed and evaluated by the BIBB, and which are made available to external researchers through the research data centre. At the same time, it explains the answers this data is able to provide to current questions within vocational education and training.
German vocational education and training attracts a good deal of attention globally because it offers young people a good way of entering the employment system. However, what are the associated costs? Although precise determination of costs is difficult in methodological terms, this article attempts to address the issue.
Data from academic research projects or official statistics plays a major role in knowledge societies. It provides the foundations for evidence-based policy making and helps initiate further research work. In light of the continuous growth in digital data, it is becoming increasingly important within this field to maintain transparency and to ensure access to data whilst at the same time safeguarding the academic research standards which apply in respect of its processing and use. This represents one of the central remits of the Rat für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsdaten (RatSWD) [German Data Forum], which was established in 2004. Chair Professor Regina T. Riphahn explains the main focuses and objectives of the Forum’s work and the current challenges it faces.
In its capacity as a departmental research institution of the Federal Government, BIBB has comprehensive VET data records at its disposal. This data is also made available outside BIBB via the BIBB-Forschungsdatenzentrum (BIBB-FDZ) [Research Data Centre] and in compliance with data protection regulations and standardised academic research procedures. This article outlines the data available via the FDZ, states the requirements which apply to the processing and use of research data, highlights the scope to which and the purposes for which data is used by researchers and concludes by debating the importance to VET research of having a research data infrastructure.
Completion of vocational education and training is of high value to the labour force on the German labour market. It reduces the risk of unemployment or precarious employment compared to persons who are not in possession of a vocational qualification. Although such average considerations are important, they also mask the high degree of variance that exists in some cases within the group of persons with vocational qualifications. The aim of the present article is to analyse inequality on the labour market in occupationally specific terms. This takes place on the basis of the Employee Survey conducted by BIBB and the Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin (BAuA) [Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health] (BIBB/BAuA Employee Survey), which provides extensive opportunities to analyse benefits on the labour market whilst also at the same time taking occupationally related drawbacks into account. The extent to which compensation for drawbacks and disadvantages at the occupational level is provided in the form of wages is a further research issue addressed by the article.
Changes in occupational content are often driven by technological developments such as the introduction of machines to perform physically demanding tasks. This means that occupations affected may lose parts of their characteristic contents, whilst other content may be added. It is not easy to predict precisely which tasks will be replaced by technology. One prominent approach (the “task approach”) assumes that so-called routine tasks in particular could be omitted through the increased deployment of new technologies. This article provides an empirical portrayal of the development of routine contents of occupations over recent decades. The focus is on what routine contents are, on how they have developed in the past and on the implications that can be identified for occupational activities.
This article investigates the extent to which the existing gender-specific distribution of men and women across education and training courses in the (vocational) education system is influenced by the institutional settings of the educational system. It uses a comparison between Germany, Norway and Canada as a basis for looking at access to fully qualifying courses (general education and VET) following lower secondary level. The BIBB Transitional Study is able to serve as a database for Germany in this regard.
Over the past ten years there has been a significant increase in debate in Germany on the consequences of technological developments for employment and training. In the wake of a series of studies, more and more questions are being posed with regard to the future of vocationally qualified skilled workers. Particular use has been made in this regard of expert evaluations and employee surveys. The BIBB Training Panel is a company survey which permits changes to be mapped at an individual company level. The article presents the type of developments that are revealed.
Harald Pfeifer; Felix Wenzelmann; Stefan C. Wolter
Despite many commonalities between the dual training systems in Germany and Switzerland, company training costs in the two countries differ significantly. Whereas many companies in Germany incur net costs, Swiss companies provide training in a cost-neutral way on average. The article discusses the reasons for the cost differences on the basis of a series of joint studies conducted by BIBB and the University of Bern. It begins by presenting system-related factors for the cost differences before moving on to examine the influence of general institutional conditions, particularly labour market regulation, on company training costs. The final section of the article discusses the significance of the results for academic research, policy and practice.
The Vocational Education and Training Statistics are a national set of statistics established in 1977, since which time they have been providing data material for numerous indicators relating to long-term observations of dual vocational education and training. Such a data source has also always been used for research purposes. The switch to individual data collection from the 2007 reporting year has meant a considerable expansion in possible research uses. This article outlines these uses and the development of the Vocational Education and Training Statistics and presents a specific analysis example in the form of a BIBB research project.
This article presents an approach developed by BIBB for the development of competence models and procedures for the measurement of social competences derived from the same model. The approach is discussed using the occupations of medical assistant and bank clerk as an example, and its relevance for vocational education and training is explored on the basis of selected results.
Evidence-based policy advice has increased in significance over recent years, and various foundations have been created for this purpose. Examples include international competence assessment studies such as TIMMS and PISA, and there have also been surveys in the form of PIAAC or the German Educational Panel Study (NEPS), which is used to investigate lifelong educational processes. In vocational education and training, evidence-based policy advice in the form of VET reporting has a tradition which goes back as far as the 1970s and is also firmly established in statutory terms. After a brief outlining of the basic principles and development of evidence-based policy advice, the article presents examples of two newer indicators that describe the training situation and goes on to explore the scope of these for indicators-based VET reporting.
Societal, economic and technological change frequently exert effects on the educational system and labour market. Alongside regulatory work, the observation and analysis of qualifications for activities and occupations has formed one of the core remits of BIBB since the institute came into being. The aim of qualifications development research is the systematic observation and analysis of occupational developments on the labour market from various perspectives and with different data access points in order to be able to recognise changes and adaptation processes at an early stage. This article takes activities in the area of renewable energy as an example to describe this field of research both in methodological terms and from the point of view of workers and companies and to present a number of results