The dominance of apprenticeships in the German VET system and its implications for Europeanisation: a comparative view in the context of the EQF and the European LLL strategy

Abstract

Germany’s apprenticeship system is and has always been considered to be the major sub-system of VET. In this context, the debate circling around the European and German Qualifications Framework (EQF and DQR) has become one of the central issues of VET research and policy. Tasks take on a concrete shape if (a) a serious approach is adopted towards the ideas underlying the European Qualifications Framework; and (b) if consideration is given to the ‘construction sites’ typical for the German VET system as a whole. This paper intends to sharpen VET policy awareness for the problem of dealing with those unresolved German VET issues within the context of the development of the DQR. A comparative view includes Austria and France as two countries with diverging learning cultures in VET from the German case, but obviously with more ‘European’ imprints within their respective VET systems. It can be shown that there is an interrelation between the attention apprenticeships as such receive against the background of European ideas such as ‘progression’, ‘permeability’ and ‘lifelong learning’ (LLL), including the implementation and use of ‘hybrid qualifications’.

Keywords:

• apprenticeship
• dual system
• European Qualifications Framework
• permeability
• hybrid qualifications
• Germany
• Austria
• France
• VET reform

Notes

1. ‘Hybridity’ is the topic of an EU Leonardo Project entitled ‘Hybrid Qualifications – Increasing the value of VET in the context of Lifelong Learning’, in which the authors participate. Partners in this project are: Alison Fuller (University of Southampton, UK), Josef Aff (Vienna University of Business and Economics, Austria) and Christian H. Jorgensen (University of Roskilde, Denmark).

2. German literature differentiates between full and partial, integrative and additive as well as simultaneous and consecutive types of educational pathways which lead to HQ (Bojanowski 1996, 534; Dauenhauer and Kell 1990, 56f; Fingerle 1983, 198). As soon as it is possible for students to acquire both a school leaving certificate that entails access to higher education and a formal vocational qualification that allows students to enter into the labour market, we talk of full HQ (Dehnbostel 1996, 170). HQ described in this article are meant to be full HQ.

3. KMK = Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in Germany.

4. In Germany, the Gymnasium (grammar school) is almost the exclusive way to university education.

5. Examples: (1) Acquisition of the university entrance qualification after 12 or 13 years at a grammar school and afterwards apprenticeship training (approx. 3 years). (2) Acquisition of the intermediate secondary school leaving certificate after 10 years, afterwards apprenticeship training (approx. 3 years) followed by two years in a so-called ‘Berufsoberschule’ (Stender 2006, 217).

6. Due to education policy in favour of vocational full-time schools, the number of BHS students quadrupled in the last 40 years although the total number of students decreased by a third (Specht 2009, 35).

7. ‘Competence’ (e.g., in the UK context) or ‘competency’ (e.g., in the Australian context) can be understood as ‘the specification of knowledge and skill and the application of that knowledge and skill to the standard of performance expected in the workplace’. Consequently, CBET itself may be described as ‘training which is performance- and standards-based and related to realistic workplace practices… It is focussed on what learners can do rather than on the courses they have done’. This definition (ANTA 1998, 10; Misko 1999, 3) places the focus of CBET on outcomes measured against standards rather than on courses based on institutional arrangements (classes in schools, e.g., or apprenticeships), where individual achievements are normally valued against others.