(2018-07-12) Rebuilding Germanys Centuriesold Vocational Program

Rebuilding Germany’s centuries-old vocational program

In one room, a group of young men train to be automotive mechatronic engineers

Most started at Siemens fresh out of secondary school at age 16. Instead of paying tuition and fees—a mechanical engineering program with a mechatronics concentration at a school like North Carolina State University costs some $25,000 to $44,000 a year—trainees receive a small salary while they learn

The Siemens training is part of a vocational program in Germany that is heralded globally for speeding roughly 500,000 young people a year into the workforce

Such advocates cite the so-called skills gap in many advanced countries: the inability of companies to find people with relevant technical expertise

The origin of the German apprenticeship, or Ausbildung, program dates back centuries, to when trades were governed by powerful guilds

“Germany has shown that they can prepare people for a range of jobs today and over the next decade,” says Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford University. “What they haven’t shown is that they are preparing people who are as adaptable when the economy changes.”

Today, young Germans get put on a career track, headed toward either university or vocational (VoTech) training, when they are approximately 10 years old; those on the vocational track begin work and training at 16.

Such programs are not cheap, costing businesses around 18,000 euros per year for the average pupil.

According to a study by Hanushek, recent university graduates in Germany were 12.9 percent less likely to be employed than their vocationally trained peers.

But unemployment goes up and lifetime earnings fall when workers get into their mid-40s. At that age, the outdated skills of someone with vocational training can make it harder to stay in the labor force. University graduates—who learned more generalized knowledge, analytical thinking, problem-solving, and organization, the skills that experts predict will grow increasingly valuable in an AI-driven economy—adapt better.

“I think the German vocational system is probably not particularly well placed to deal with the changes to come,” says Ludger Woessmann, an economist at the University of Munich. For a decade, he says, young Germans have increasingly been choosing university rather than vocational programs

To confront the challenges of an AI-driven century, the program has added a newly blended approach, for the lucky few who qualify. Thelen describes it as an elite dual-studies track that confers both a bachelor’s or master’s degree and a traditional apprenticeship credential.