If the federal government has its way, Abdullah Isik’s example should set a precedent: Despite initial doubts, he decided to do an apprenticeship – today the 20-year-old is happy about the step. In the future, Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) wants to attract more young people for training, as she announced on Monday in a Berlin technology company. “We need more young people again, more hard-working hands, more bright minds who also want to go into vocational training,” said Stark-Watzinger.
For Abdullah Isik, the path to becoming an employee in the company with more than 7,600 employees was by no means predetermined from the start. “I didn’t have a plan at school,” he says. There was no career guidance there either. At first he didn’t manage to get the middle school certificate he was aiming for.
Vocational or academic training?
Isik then graduated from a high school. In Berlin, various training courses are combined at these centers according to professional fields. But he still didn’t know how to proceed. As he explains, the upper school center offered careers orientation with numerous tests and job application training. But he thought: “Anyone who messed up the tenth grade has no chance in a company like this.” Nevertheless, he applied at random to the technology company, was accepted – and taken on after his training.
Stark-Watzinger complains about the opposite trend: “The number of training contracts is stagnating, and in some cases it is also declining.” Because more and more young people wanted to do an academic education. That’s why Stark-Watzinger started the “Excellence Initiative Vocational Training” with various measures. A reform of the promotion loan should increase the individual chances of each individual. With this Bafög the preparation for advanced training qualifications such as master craftsman or master craftsman is promoted.
Career orientation in schools must also be intensified. Stark-Watzinger demanded: “Above all, it must also arrive in high schools.” In addition, according to the minister, the major social issues should move more into the training focus. “For example, combating climate change, but also digitization and others.” Furthermore, “the international mobility of young people” should increase in vocational training. The steps of the “Excellence Initiative” will be funded by Stark-Watzinger’s ministry with around 750 million euros until 2026.
“Under no circumstances only funding of lighthouse projects”
Practice was already very important in Abdullah Isik’s upper secondary school. But compared to his experiences in his high-tech company, he describes the equipment there as “outdated”. “In our school system, the level of digital technology is like it was in 2010,” he says.
The deputy chairwoman of the DGB, Elke Hannack, was reluctant to comment on the new “Excellence Initiative”. Vocational training must be strengthened. “However, under no circumstances should this amount to funding flagship projects while there is no broad-based support.” The federal and state governments, for example, urgently need to better equip vocational schools.
The Greens parliamentary group leader Katharina Dröge promised that the “Excellence Initiative” would bundle new and existing measures to recruit skilled workers. Because: “From the small craft business that installs heat pumps to the large company that produces wind turbines, the economy is feeling the shortage of skilled workers.”
