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Abstract
In both Switzerland and Germany, necessary reforms in vocational education have been taking place for the past few years. By taking a closer look at the commerce sectors of both countries and their reforms, one can better compare their systems of apprenticeship. While the necessity for change in the commercial sector was similar in both countries, the course of these changes has been quite different. A widespread reform of the Swiss commercial sector began in 2003. In Germany, a comparable sweeping change in commercial apprenticeships cannot be seen, although many reforms have been implemented. In order to analyse the process and results of modernisation of both vocational education systems, they are compared and contrasted. Finally, hypotheses are formed about the possible reasons for the differences in vocational education in these two countries.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Professor Dr Thomas Deissinger (Konstanz), Dr Martina Behrens (London) and Dr Dominic Orr (Hannover) for critically reading the manuscript, and the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.
Notes
1. The omission of Austria in this study is due to a lack of space to discuss the situation in Austria properly (for a three country approach see Rothe, Citation2001).
2. Even the most explicit and detailed comparative work on the three different vocational education systems of Switzerland, Austria and Germany by Rothe (Citation2001) could not deal with all aspects and Rothe himself pointed out, that the matter is too complex to meet such intention (pp. 812–814).
3. In the German speaking countries the words ‘commerce’ and ‘commercial’ are used very widely for example in commercial law (‘Kaufmann’), for organisations like the ‘chambers of commerce’, for university degrees (‘Diploma‐Kaufmann’) or also in the context of vocational education (the traditional name of the certificate for successful completion of an apprenticeship in the commercial sector is called ‘kaufmannsgehilfenbrief’).
4. This also includes the sales sector (same data base for the mentioned German percentage). If we exclude the sales sector, the percentage of apprentices in commerce is a bit more than 20% of all apprentices in Switzerland.
5. It might be interesting to mention that ‘Dual System’ has a second meaning in Germany. The German recycling system is called ‘Dual System’ as well, which confused one foreign educational expert on his journey through Germany when he saw some signs with the name ‘Duales System’ in front of some dustbins.
6. This kind of ‘gold‐standard’ in the context of vocational education leads to the phenomenon that apprentices accept low payments relative to wages for unqualified work. Vocationalism in this interpretation is a guarantee of higher wages, social status etc. in the future and the low income during an apprenticeship is an investment for the future.
7. To get a more detailed picture of the Swiss Dual System of initial vocational education in general see EDK, Citation2002; The Swiss Education Server, Citation2003; OOFP, Citation2002; Gonon, Citation1999, Citation2005; Wettstein, Citation2000.
8. Even before the reform the initial vocational training system in commerce was based on three different tracks, which were quite similar to the new structure. It might also be interesting to note that in Switzerland, the apprenticeship for shop assistants is separate and not part of the apprenticeships in commerce.
9. As mentioned before, the M‐track has a special function and is not the focus of this approach.
10. To avoid misunderstandings it might be helpful to mention that the concept of ‘competencies’ in the German speaking countries is different from that in other countries. Following the widely accepted critical description by Weinert (Citation1999) the concept of competencies includes not only performance competencies but also a wide range of cognitive and motivational action tendencies, metacompetencies and key skills.
11. International comparisons show the different understanding of competencies and skill concepts in vocational education (Achtenhagen & Grubb, Citation2001). In the Swiss context competencies have three dimensions: Sector specific knowledge, social communication and behaviour (for example working with others) and method‐related competencies (like problem solving).
12. For a detailed picture of the German Dual System of initial vocational education in general see Lipsmeier (Citation1994), Deissinger (Citation1996), BMBF (Citation1997) and Sauter and Scmidt (Citation2002).
13. The section of the aspects based on the analysis of the relevant documents (see introductory section).
14. ‘‘Comparing’ can be traced back to its fundamental function of setting subjects together so as to ascertain how far they agree or disagree. In this view, referring back to its aim of determining equality, similarity and difference the range of ‘comparing’ is, in principle, ubiquitous. For instance, the popular saying that ‘apples cannot be compared with pears’, can be easily contradicted by the definition of various teria comparationis to be derived from their sharing of common features such as plant, fruit, food, etc. or related to special questions, such as the time of ripening, the amount of sugar and water and the degree of digestibility’ (Lauterbach & Mitter, Citation1998, p. 250).
15. Once again at this early stage of development, it is just possible to use methods of syllabus analysis combined with the interpretation of resources, which describe the process of modernisation.
16. Even if the role of the training instructor in the commercial sector in both countries (Rothe, Citation2001, p. 794) is not comparable with the traditional dominant position for the master craftsman (the so called ‘Meister’ is an historically developed position and status, which never was transferred to the commercial sector) in crafts occupations and traditional industry sectors (Arnold & Münch, Citation1996, pp. 64–66; Deissinger, Citation1996 p. 328), the role of the training instructor in both countries is different. In Switzerland the reforms strengthen the importance of the training instructor much more than in Germany by giving them the power of marking the apprentice in the company (see the section on Swiss reforms).
17. Following the reform of the Federal Training Act a phased form of final examinations is possible (for example a split of the written exams and the oral exams over a longer time) (BMBF, Citation2005; Frank, Citation2005). But in the commercial sector, the implementation of this possibility into the training regulations of the specific apprenticeships has not yet taken place.
18. Although it is possible to repeat final examinations, the number of trainees who quit the apprenticeship without certificates before the final exams or who fail in the final exams is remarkably high. For example in 2002 in commerce and trade more than 11% of all candidates failed their final exams of the chambers (BMBF, Citation2004, p. 87).
19. In the first year of the apprenticeship the number of taught lessons in the vocational school is the highest and the number of school hours in the last year of the apprenticeship is the lowest.
20. As mentioned before, research about the differences of vocational education in Switzerland and Germany is not very common, even in German speaking countries.
21. The advantage of smaller countries in the development and implementation of reforms can be found for example in Scotland (in comparison to England), (Pilz, Citation1999, p. 236)
22. To avoid misunderstandings: In Germany the developing process and the implementation is also funded by public money. Especially the Federal Institute for Vocational Training is involved in the modernisation process. But from a financial point of view it is obvious that it is much easier to concentrate resources on two different apprenticeships in commerce as in Switzerland than on forty, as in Germany.