Merging of two German vocational education and training systems amid turbulent times

BWP The German reunification saw the merger of two systems of vocational education and training in Germany. Professor Schmidt, as director of the BIBB you were faced with a very particular kind of challenge, together with those responsible from the Central Institute for Vocational Education and Training (ZIB) of the GDR, in helping to shape this process. What were regarded as the most pressing matters at the time?

SCHMIDT The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the start of a period of time which will live long in our memory. Within the BIBB we experienced a fundamental shift in our own roles almost overnight. For twenty years the subject of our work had been hundreds of kilometres west from our location in Berlin in the Federal Republic of Germany, we now found ourselves right at the centre of a new sphere of activity. We became the central point of contact for issues relating to initial and continuing education for both the Federal Government and, from May 1990 onwards, for the government of the GDR as well as for GDR citizens. The delight we all experienced as a result of the unexpected events gave us the energy we needed to cope with the demands placed on us.

We began working with the ZIB on 4 January 1990. My deputy, Professor Helmut Pütz, and I agreed a range of joint projects with the ZIB leadership. This included the introduction of commercial training for companies operating under free-market conditions in the GDR. There was evidence of excellent technical education and training but, for example, conditions under the previous system had resulted in a lack of training for industrial managers, traders, bankers and insurance brokers. We developed proposals for retaining the large-scale training institutions threatened with closure for the purpose of inter-company training. The differences in the character, content and duration of training of occupations meant that plans were compared and developed for their standardisation.

In the early months of 1990 we were still operating on the basis of collaboration by the two institutes in a confederation of both German states. Following the East German parliament elections in May and as a consequence of the decision by the East German Parliament to adopt our Vocational Training Act, it was then simply a matter of achieving a workable solution amid the initial chaos which then ensued. The ZIB was disbanded at the end of the year. 30 colleagues were able to join us in the BIBB, but sadly the Finance Minister was unwilling to grant us any other posts. The expertise we gained as a result turned out to be a real godsend. Without the commitment and specialist knowledge of these employees, we would not have been able to overcome the many adaptation problems we faced any where near as well as we did.

BWP Were the BIBB and the ZIB already in communication prior to the reunification?

SCHMIDT The BIBB had been issuing invitations to the ZIB and to all Eastern Bloc education and training institutions on an annual basis since the start of the 80s. The Polish institute was the only one to reply. Tadeusz Nowacki, director of the Warsaw Institute was a regular visitor to Berlin from 1984 onwards. We heard nothing from the ZIB or the other institutes. The ZIB did accept an invitation following the cultural agreement between the Federal Republic and the GDR in 1986. Director Wolfgang Rudolph and three colleagues met with us on "neutral territory" for three days at the Aachen Chamber of Trade in West Germany. Issues covered included the restructuring of metal working occupations which was taking place at the same time both in the GDR and with us. Our colleagues from the ZIB, incidentally, knew far more about our work than we did about theirs.

The GDR organised the first UNESCO vocational education and training congress in 1987. Here ZIB and BIBB colleagues met and discussed issues. In 1988, we actually met with our ZIB colleagues on three occasions. This included a visit by the GDR State Secretary for Vocational Education and Training to the Ministry of Education in Bonn, a symposium in Bydgoszcz/Poland at which, for the first time, I attended a conference for Institutes of all states of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, and – at the invitation of Professor Anweiler of the University of Bochum – involvement in expert discussions regarding issues relating to research into vocational education and training.

The institutes were certainly not strangers to one another when the Berlin wall fell.

BWP The East German parliament had approved the statutory bases of the dual system in the Federal Republic in July 1990 with the adoption of the Vocational Education and Training Act and a vocational school act even before the unification treaty. Why was there such a rush, and how did this momentum influence the transformation process?

SCHMIDT Before this was approved, I was at a consultation with other experts in the East German parliament. I made the case for a gradual approach over several years because all parties involved would have been in constant contravention of the law had it been implemented immediately; the necessary conditions for proper implementation were not in place. One of the members of parliament rose to his feet and replied: “Mr Schmidt, you are quite right. But try saying that to the young people in my constituency. They all want the West German skilled worker certificate, and they want it now because otherwise it will affect their chances of finding work.” The chaotic introduction of the system which resulted in many young people moving to West Germany for education and training in the years which followed is now history.
At the time, many opportunities to optimise the system were squandered as a result of both the differing interests of West German stakeholders and the way in which decision-making was rushed through. A basic vocational education and training year based in schools would have been an opportunity to mitigate against the transformation problems. More than anything, this would have taken the load off numerous small businesses currently being formed from having to deliver foundation knowledge – a factor preventing them from offering training. However, both West German employers and the Federal government rejected this for education policy reasons. The thoroughly attractive notion of “skilled worker with 'Abitur' (qualification for entry to higher education)” also fell victim to West German interests, even before the changes required for this to be implemented could be discussed. The employers perceived a threat to the assessment prerogative of the Chambers of Trade, and the ministers for culture saw a risk in integrating both vocational and general education and training, and also perceived a threat to the prerogative they held for the assessment of the qualification for entry to higher education. In our view, the commissions for the development of individual occupations in the GDR (Berufsfachkommissionen) would also have been very beneficial. But these also did not fit in with the West German way of seeing things.

BWP As director of the BIBB, you had many contacts both within and outside Europe. How were the developments in Germany being received there?

SCHMIDT At the time, there was a surge in visits to the BIBB by vocational education and training experts from all over the world who wanted to observe the accelerated convergence, as it were, of the two systems. Having toured through the GDR for several weeks,Val Rust, an American colleague from Seattle, commented “You are really going to anschluss East Germany”. I held up the decision by the East German parliament to show that this was not the case, but he would not be convinced.

At that time we were in regular contact with partner institutions in the USA, the UK, France and Italy. We often hosted mainly those countries who would have been keen to adopt a version of the dual system which was tailored to their needs. The BIBB had already been advising British ministers in their efforts to introduce formal dual training (Youth Training Scheme) to the UK since the start of the 1980s. Our British colleagues were very disappointed to see the huge difficulties clearly associated with merging together two related dual systems; a disappointment shared by many other visitors.

In the years which followed, collaboration with the USA became ever closer and resulted in a period of intensive consultation as Robert Reich, President Clinton's Employment Minister, established the statutory basis for the development of company supported education and training (“school-to-work-opportunities-act”).
The visit of Professor Smirnov, the Soviet Union's Deputy Minister for Education at the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) caused quite a stir politically. Smirnov, who took charge of the Vocational Training Institute in Moscow following the end of the USSR, stressed that he was visiting us informally in the BIBB. He was primarily interested in system transfer issues within dual education and training and above all in the modernization of training regulations.

BWP What can you conclude, when you look back at this momentous time? Despite the escalating events, in which areas sensible action was taken, and where was this less so the case?

SCHMIDT Without any basis for comparison, it is hard to speculate about the likely success of alternatives. Nobody would have expected that 25 years later the differences which currently exist between East and West would still be there. In terms of vocational education and training, I remain proud of the substantial contribution which colleagues of both German vocational education and training institutes made towards supporting young people who were completing training at the time and towards the merging of the systems. I have admiration for the huge extent to which vocational schools and numerous independent institutions in the new states were able to adapt; this absorbed much of what it was simply not possible to achieve in company-based education and training. I also admire the efforts and astonishing development work of the Chambers of Trade who, in no time at all, created a registration, supervisory and assessment infrastructure to form the structural spine of the dual system without which all work by companies on the ground would have been in vain.

(Interview: Christiane Jäger) 

Translation from the German original (published in BWP 5/2015): Martin Stuart Kelsey, Global SprachTeam, Berlin