The German vocational education and training system : its institutional configuration, strengths, and challenges

Germany is widely known for its high-quality vocational education and training (VET) system. The two key features of that system are (a) firm-based training programs accompanied by a schoolbased component (of one to two days per week), in which apprentices acquire upper secondary general education in core subjects (like math and German) and theoretical knowledge in their training occupation. This duality of practical and theoretical knowledge acquired at the workplace and at vocational schools is (b) accompanied by the private-public duality in the governance structure (i.e., public governance of the vocational schools, provide governance of the firm-based training). In the recent recession, this so-called dual system has received much international attention, for instance in the US, UK, or Spain. Whereas youth unemployment has increased enormously in the last years in many (European) countries, this has not been the case in Germany. From the outside, therefore, it may look as if Germany’s low youth unemployment rate is to be credited to the dual system. That observation, however, is only partly correct, as we will discuss in this paper. [...]