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The journal reports on research findings and practical experience with issues from vocational education and training, thus fostering an exchange between education research, day-to-day education practice and education policy.
Current issue
Migration and integration (BWP 2/2024)
21.2 million people with a history of immigration were living in Germany in 2023. As a country of immigration, how is Germany seeking to shape their integration? And what contribution is being made by vocational education and training in this regard?
This issue of BWP presents relevant research results and practical concepts. A particular focus is placed on the young people who have sought refuge in Germany since 2015/16. Aspects of consideration will include their points of access to initial and continuing VET, the factors which impede and foster participation, and measures aimed at encouraging integration.
The articles provide numerical data which forms the basis for an objective debate on what has been achieved thus far and on the remaining challenges in respect of sustainably promoting integration in and via vocational education and training.
21.2 million people with a history of immigration live in Germany. They all bring their own competencies, experiences and expectations with them. In Germany, a country of immigration, they encounter various general conditions which can either facilitate or hamper their integration into training and work. In her capacity as the Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration of the Federal Government, Reem Alabali-Radovan advocates equal training opportunities for all young people, integration courses for every immigrant and refugee, more naturalisations, and a strong stand against racism. In this interview, she explains how she endeavours to meet these objectives in her role.
Young refugees in Germany tend to pursue academic training goals first rather than aspire to vocational education and training. This article investigates the question of whether a longer duration of stay in the country can help change their objectives and make it more likely that young refugees will gravitate towards VET instead of to higher education. Representative data from an IAB-BAMF-SOEP survey of 17-year-old refugees was evaluated for this purpose.
This article looks at the education and training histories of young refugees who arrived in Germany between 2014 and 2018. The education and training histories of young refugees are described before an examination is undertaken of the reasons why some young people remain in the general school system to begin with and proceed directly to a (specialised) upper secondary school-leaving certificate whilst others commence vocational preparation or VET.
Robin Busse; Julia Bock-Schappelwein; Marlise Kammermann
Vocational education and training is seen as crucial to the successful integration of young refugees into work. Findings that have emerged from Germany, Austria and Switzerland show that these countries are adopting different routes in supporting the integration of refugees despite commonalities in the structure of their VET systems. The article mainly focuses on the phases of training preparation and of access to training.
Refugees require extensive assistance in many areas of life, especially at the transition to training. Coordination of support provision is, however, a challenge. The results of the evaluation of the “Career Orientation for Refugees” Programme (BOF) show how important a broad networking of project providers is in order to support immigrants in training. The article formulates recommendations in this regard.
Diversity brought about by migration is a normal state of affairs at both general and vocational schools. Nevertheless, those who do not complete their school biography in the German education system from the outset experience disadvantage and are less likely to be successful in achieving school and training qualifications. Teaching staff are not yet sufficiently professionalised to deal with the diversity exhibited by their learners because of migration, and new migrants have only added to this diversity over recent years. This article highlights the requirements made of teachers and illustrates possible ways in which their training can better prepare them.
While (initial) vocational education and training is highly significant to the integration of refugees, it also creates challenges for them during this phase of life, and this is frequently because of insufficient language knowledge. The University of Konstanz has been implementing the TASK teaching project since 2018 with the objective of providing refugee trainees with individualised support. This article investigates the impacts of the mentoring programme on the professional and personal development of trainees and on their integration.
The language competencies refugees and migrants require for training and work are often higher than those needed in everyday life. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has been piloting an innovative approach towards precisely tailored language support for work and training since 2020. This article presents the paradigm shift which has been achieved and the design concept of the course.
Starting employment is a key component of immigrants’ societal participation in Germany. Recognition of the qualifications which immigrant skilled workers have acquired abroad is an important step towards sustainable integration into this country’s labour market. Data relating to the recognition grant being piloted with funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is used to show what role is also played by characteristics relating to origin and occupations in the employment chances of immigrants who have completed a recognition procedure.
The curricular principle of situation orientation has been robustly deployed for the first time in the design of the new skeleton and federal state curricula for nursing training. Teaching staff are now being called upon to structure both internal school curricula and their teaching in accordance with occupational action situations. The research project TUD-Sylber-BBS Sub-project 4, which forms part of the BMBF-funded “Campaign for quality in teacher training”, has been exploring occupational action situations and identifying core professional tasks in order to provide an empirical basis for situation-related teaching. This article describes the approach taken by the project and presents selected results. It concludes by discussing didactic implications.
There can be many individual reasons for choosing part-time training, including early parenthood, immigration, physical impairment, or the pursuit of competitive sport. The Vocational Training Act has set out the legal foundations for time flexibility of training since 2005. The Vocational Education and Training Modernisation Act (BBiMoG) of 12.12.2019 introduced new provisions in this regard. This article uses the Vocational Education and Training Statistics to investigate whether use of the part-time options in training practice is revealing initial effects of the new regulation.
Ranking lists of the most popular training occupations pursuant to the Vocational Training Act (BBiG) and the Crafts and Trades Regulation Code (HwO) are published annually. School-based VET programmes are not shown in these rankings. Consideration of different statistics allow school-based VET to be included in the figures and thus completes the overview of the field. Once again, this clearly shows that young people’s occupational preferences often lie beyond the training system pursuant to the BBiG/HwO.
Over the past few years, e-commerce has led to the creation of new task areas, processes and business models with their own ways of working and sequences which were not covered by the established commercial occupations. This made it necessary to introduce a new occupation to provide training for tasks in the area of e-commerce. This profile presents the tasks, development opportunities and figures for this new occupation which entered into force in 2018.
