Cover roofs? Laying tiles? Bake rolls? Repair cars? Many young people in Germany decide to attend a higher education institution rather than learning a vocational traineeship. Especially the craft needs more qualified employees, the order books are full, the image of some training negative.
How do you get the offspring from the school to the workbench? The industrial union Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt (IG Bau) has come up with a special idea: It requires a compulsory school internship in the trades.
"During the internship students should at least once experience in a craft business can collect," said the deputy union chairman Dietmar Schäfers to kick off the International Crafts Fair in Munich. One possibility is a compulsory short internship in crafts between the seventh and twelfth grade.
Student internships usually last two weeks, are done during the ninth and tenth grade, and are pre-prepared and followed up in the classroom. They are intended to provide students with insights into working and working life. The students choose the internship according to their inclinations and interests.
More internships - and a quota
In order for at least one station in the craft sector to be considered during school, the duration and number of internships could be increased according to Schäfers. "Conceivable is a recommendation of the Conference of Ministers of Education regarding the compulsory internships in secondary education I and II," said Schäfers.
A quota system was also a possibility for him: "A quota for the craft during the school internship could make a contribution to make the professions more well-known and to attract more school leavers for an education," said Schäfers.
For the first time, more training places were available in the past year than there were applicants. However, the number of completed training contracts in the craft sector has been increasing for years. By the beginning of the new training year in October, 136,784 young people had a new apprenticeship. That was 1.2 percent more than at the same time last year, said the Central Association of German Crafts (ZDH).
The increasing number of students in Germany and the question of whether they are at the expense of vocational training, have been causing discussion for years. Education Minister Anja Karliczek said when she took office one year ago that in her view university graduates are no longer contributing to the economic success of Germany as someone with vocational training.
A study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) last year showed that vocational education and training is almost as protective against unemployment as studying. However, this has not changed anything in view of the rising number of students.