Proposals to reform school-to-IVET transitions attract only conditional consensus

Given the problems faced by many young people during the transition from school into initial vocational education and training (IVET), how to increase the accessibility of the IVET system is a matter for debate. In a round of the BIBB "Vocational Training Experts Monitor" survey at the end of 2010, around 500 experts commented on various reform proposals. Their ratings are presented in this article. These indicate that the only policy concepts likely to command a consensus in Germany are those which leave the existing rules on access to IVET intact. Reforms which restrict the autonomy of businesses' decision-making in the recruitment of apprentices therefore have little or no chance of implementation. In contrast, there is broad approval for innovations in the transition system and more intensive support measures for companies and young people.

When school leavers complete the lower secondary phase of general education, they are normally between 16 and 17 years of age. For comparison, the average age at which those without a university entrance qualification commence IVET is 19.2 years (cf. UHLY 2010). Thus, it takes many school-leavers interested in IVET a year or longer to be able to start a fully-qualifying vocational training programme. A proportion of them respond to these transition problems with despondency and forgo training altogether (cf. BEICHT/ULRICH 2008).

Out of concern for these young people and with an eye to the impending shortage of skilled workers (cf. HILGER/SEVERING 2008), a current topic of debate is how the access mechanisms can be reformed to make the integration of young people into the IVET system - sociologists talk about "inclusion" - more efficient. The particular challenge resides in the fact that obtaining a placement in the dual system - unlike entrance to higher education, for example, - represents a form of "market inclusion": it occurs largely via the matching of supply and demand (cf. ESSER 2000, pp. 233 ff.). If the demand from companies for apprentices is distinctly lower than the number of applicants - as was the case once again in 2010 - many young people remain excluded from the dual system.

The various proposed solutions to this problem that are currently under discussion can be summarised in terms of three fundamental strategies:

1. The first strategy is geared towards watering down or relativising the principle of market-driven inclusion (cf. NEß 2007, p. 169). This means limiting the autonomy of companies to decide whether and to whom they provide initial vocational training. The aim of imposing certain conditions on companies is to increase the overall volume of IVET that companies provide and to eliminate specific barriers to access for disadvantaged young people (e.g. young migrants).

2. The second strategy does not interfere with market-driven inclusion but aims to complement it with a rule-driven inclusion mechanism ("inclusion by rule"; for definitions, see the box below). In concrete terms, this means that prospective trainees who meet certain admission criteria - e.g. hold a school-leaving certificate, meet the criterion of "apprenticeship-entry maturity" or, in the most basic scenario, have simply left school - obtain, without exception, an offer of training leading to a vocational qualification. This requires the use of non-company-based forms of IVET and the development of new IVET models (cf. EULER 2010, p. 25).

   Inclusion by market
   The integration of young people into the vocational training system operates by means of a market. The matching of supply and demand are critical to the success of inclusion. (Young people offer themselves as the supply of potential apprentices, and are recruited by companies with a demand for new apprentices.)

   Inclusion by rule
   The integration of young people into the IVET system operates according to specified admission rules. If the young person satisfies the rule, admission duly follows. Hence, inclusion is not dependent on the matching of supply and demand or the number of other competing applicants. (After ESSER 2000, p. 233 ff.).

3. The third strategy does not set out to seek new forms of inclusion but to stimulate the economy's demand for apprentices while retaining market-driven access (cf. WERNER 2005, p. 64 ff.). To achieve this, the "supply" must be made more attractive to companies, and their costs and risks of providing IVET must be lowered. This can be done by taking steps to upgrade the entry-level qualifications of applicants or the targeting of the recruitment process, or alternatively, by providing additional support to companies who employ disadvantaged young people.
   The proposals envisage improving young people's level of qualification on entry by implementing reforms in the transition system or the general education system, more targeted recruitment e.g. through better vocational orientation, training-entry mentors and monitoring systems.

One attitude that is occasionally observed and attracts some criticism (cf. HILGER/SEVERING 2008, p. 94) is, quite simply, the wait-and-see approach. In view of the demographic trend, a judgement is made that the market position of young people and hence their IVET opportunities will inevitably improve. The advantage of this strategy may be that it tends to discourage risky interventions in the system, the consequences and side-effects of which can never be anticipated precisely. Moreover, it avoids a wearisome political consultation process which is all the more likely if the reforms involve systemic changes. For many education and training sectors play a part in the transition process (general schools, the transition system consisting of school-based courses and programmes, and the dual system) and these in turn are controlled by a host of actors, many of which have their own particular viewpoints and interests (cf. BAETHGE 2006). Recent improvements in the state of the apprenticeship market and the falling numbers of young people ending up in the transition system even appear to lend weight to the strategy of "attentism" (i.e. the wait-and-see school of thought). However, critics of this approach blame it for blocking reforms, which causes young people to suffer the most.

Figure Backgrounds of the 482 participants in Vocational Training Experts Monitor 2010

Against this backdrop, the question to be addressed is which of the reform proposals up for discussion are not only promising but also likely to garner a sizeable consensus, and thus have a realistic prospect of speedy implementation. This was answered by 482 experts in the course of the "Vocational Training Experts Monitor 2010". The study took place in cooperation with the project "Übergänge mit System" (Transitions with system) commissioned by the Bertelsmann Foundation (cf. at length, Autorengruppe BIBB/Bertelsmann Stiftung 2011) .¹

The BIBB Vocational Training Experts Monitor is an Internet-based questionnaire system which is used to survey specialists on education policy issues at irregular intervals (www.expertenmonitor.de). At the end of 2010 they were first asked to give a basic assessment of the current situation regarding the "school-to-work transition". Next they were asked to state how desirable they consider various reform proposals, and whether they expect them to be implemented by the year 2015. The proposals were stated as concretised examples of the three alternative strategies outlined above (cf. Table).

For the purposes of the Vocational Training Experts Monitor, experts are defined as all persons who play a part in IVET in different contexts, whether in steering the system, in delivering IVET itself, or else in teaching or conducting research on these aspects (cf. Figure). Their broad range of institutional backgrounds serves to give a maximally nuanced perspective on the envisaged reforms from a variety of viewpoints. From the outset, however, it is also safe to anticipate that experts will not always speak with one voice in response to proposals. Of course, when rating reforms as more or less desirable, all of their thoughts are informed by the presumed benefits of these reforms (cf. ESSER 1999, p. 247 ff.). Yet the benefits for young people and the question of whether they would actually be helped by the innovations are by no means the experts' sole concern. Rather, their own interests and the consequences of the reforms for their own sector also exert an influence.

The first column of the table shows which concrete reform proposals were put up for discussion in the context of the Vocational Training Experts Monitor, and subsequent columns represent the percentages of experts from each sub-group who favoured each proposal (i.e. rated it as "quite" or "very desirable"). The experts' responses can be systematised relatively clearly.

There is no unanimity, and in some respects only very muted agreement, regarding proposals to relativise the principle of inclusion by market (strategy 1) or to supplement it with the principle of selection by rule (strategy 2). In other words, any idea of compelling firms to operate anonymised application procedures (proposal 1.1 in the table) or quota systems for the benefit of particular groups of applicants (1.2) gain a non-committal response from almost all sub-groups of experts. Proposals to smooth the way for guaranteed access to IVET for young people with lengthened apprenticeship periods (1.3), individual qualification offers (1.4), or non-company-based forms of IVET (2.1 and 2.2) gain more frequent approval overall but are unlikely to command a majority in all groups.

Table: Approval of reform proposals to support inclusion from the viewpoint of experts (in %)*

This is principally because the majority of experts from industry (i.e. employers, chamber representatives) reject these ideas, particularly the proposal of equating the lower secondary school leaving certificate with "apprenticeship-entry maturity" (2.3). In contrast, trade unionists, who understand their role as the representatives of young people's interests, generally welcome all these proposals. Their views only coincide with those of industry representatives in rejecting any modularised pathway to a vocational qualification (2.2) and any legal obligation upon companies to allocate a certain quota of their apprenticeship places to migrants (1.2).

The strong position of employers in political decision-finding (cf. BAETHGE 2006) might be one of the reasons that experts rarely see any likelihood of implementation of proposals geared towards modification of the existing inclusion mechanisms (not presented in graphical form here; on this aspect, cf. Autorengruppe BIBB/Bertelsmann Stiftung 2011). The innovation most frequently expected is the institutional recognition of the lower secondary school leaving certificate as a certificate of apprenticeship-entry maturity (in the same way as the Abitur certifies readiness for entry to higher education), although only a quarter of all experts believe that it will take place by 2015.

The conclusions of the Vocational Training Experts Monitor show two clear strands: in respect of fundamental institutional changes in access to dual-system IVET which limit the autonomy and dominant role of companies in the selection of applicants, the experts consider reform efforts to be futile. Reform proposals only have a chance of success provided that they do not interfere with the prevailing market-determined inclusion mechanisms. Fundamental changes in the transition system or a refocusing of vocational orientation provision in schools within the general education system are proposals which do not affect the principle of inclusion by market forces, and which may even reduce the costs and enhance the benefits of in-company IVET. Their likelihood of realisation is therefore rated more highly. Nevertheless, most experts believe that implementation will take time, and 2015 as a target year might be too soon.

JULIA GEI
Assistant in the "Vocational Training Supply and Demand/Training Participation" Section at BIBB

ANDREAS KREWERTH
Researcher in the "Vocational Training Supply and Demand/Training Participation" Section at BIBB

JOACHIM GERD ULRICH
Dr. rer. pol., researcher in the "Vocational Training Supply and Demand/Training Participation" Section at BIBB

Translation from the German original (published in BWP 2/2011): Deborah Shannon, Academic Text & Translation, Berlin