Work and Business Orientation as Orientation Points for the Development of Regulatory Tools

The greatest challenge for VET practice is to replace the concept of science orientation and the subject-systematic structuring of educational courses with an educational concept that is oriented toward vocational competence development. The justification of the pedagogical guiding idea for VET, empowerment to help shape the world of work, includes a fundamental critique of the deterministic understanding of the relationship between technology, work, and education, which is deeply anchored in social consciousness far beyond the sciences. Technology is seen as the most powerful determinant of social change. Technological-economic determinism has found a significant expression for didactic action in vocational education and training in social science-led skills research, triggered by the broad reception of Braverman’s deskilling thesis. The “work and technology” research and the technology genesis research have the merit of having anchored the concept of shaping work and technology far beyond the scientific discussion in the social dialogue. The resulting new scope for design in the transformation of increasingly open basic innovations into concrete applications makes it easier to redefine technology, work, and education in a design-oriented perspective. This has consequences for the development and design of the means of order. If one interprets the new learning concepts as an expression of a fundamental change in perspective, from an adaptation-oriented to a design-oriented vocational education and training, then the consequences for the development and design of the regulatory tools can be summarized in the form of three theses that are presented in this chapter.