Basic Vocational Education: The Example of Electrical Engineering/Computer Science

To this day, curricula and textbooks predominantly represent a traditional understanding of basic education, which follows the implicit theory that electrical engineering is beyond the scope of vocational training, which has its roots in the master craftsman’s apprenticeship. Various arguments in favor of basic vocational education that are oriented toward theoretical electrical engineering have supported established basic education practice for many decades. This chapter shows why this basic education concept has failed. Since the convergence of computer, network, and media technology is far advanced, there is every reason to abandon the concept of a vocational field and a vocational specialization in electrical engineering and replace it with a vocational field and a specialization in electrical engineering informatics. In order to justify a work-oriented basic education concept for this vocational field, it is not sufficient to refer to technical change and its implications for work processes. A basic vocational education and training that is concerned with imparting orientation and contextual knowledge should systematize the vocational tasks accordingly. With four learning areas that build on each other and corresponding vocational task areas, a structure for the interaction of working and learning in the VET process is laid out, with which two goals are to be achieved: (1) Vocational education and training becomes a development process in which working and learning are closely intertwined. (2) Basic vocational education opens up the new world of work to the beginner by first addressing the vocationally orientating work tasks.