The Future of Vocational Education and Training

The ability of vocational skilled workers to help shape the world of work is expressed in modern vocational training practice and vocational training research. “Design competence” is becoming the guiding principle in the competence development of skilled workers in vocational schools and practical training in the companies. Anchoring the new guiding principle in vocational development opens up the possibility of modernizing occupational profiles. The introduction of open-application, broadly formulated occupational profiles (“core occupations”) is becoming apparent. In this form of professionalism, the principle of specialization is replaced by that of exemplarity. This increases the identification potential of occupations. The development of this innovation potential of dual vocational training is hindered in Germany by a fundamental lack of cooperation between learning venues: the content-related and structural design and organization of cooperation between school-based and company-based vocational training. The reason: in-company training is regulated by the Vocational Training Act (BBiG). The BBiG is not an education law, but an economic law, as in Germany only the federal states can enact education laws. They have cultural sovereignty and therefore regulate vocational training in schools. In Switzerland, an amendment to the constitution transferred the framework competence for the design and organization of dual vocational training to the federal state. As a result, the Swiss dual vocational training system with its high quality of training became a model for a fundamental reform of the German dual vocational training system. This reform would make a decisive contribution to the competitiveness of the German economy and to increasing social prosperity.