Helping hand for the disadvantaged young in Germany

Citation

(2000), "Helping hand for the disadvantaged young in Germany", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 24 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeit.2000.00324aab.006

Helping hand for the disadvantaged young in Germany

Keywords Germany, Young people, School leavers, Training

A nationwide campaign is being launched by the German Government, business and the unions to create better opportunities for unqualified school-leavers and those with learning and personality problems. The programme will focus on improving motivation as well as providing individual training.

Taking part in the campaign will be the Government, the state (Land) governments, trade and commercial associations, unions and employers' organizations and the Federal Labour Office. The campaign is part of the nationwide "Alliance for Jobs" which was launched by the Government after it came into office in September 1998.

A meeting chaired by Education and Training Minister, Edelgard Bulmahn, was told that young people who leave school with no certificate are twice as likely to have no job as those who have a certificate, and so are in danger of falling out of the system and perhaps of being permanently sidelined.

For a start, her ministry is to draw up schemes to provide alternative opportunities to help the dis-advantaged to get a skills certificate by means of, for instance, special or sheltered workshops and production courses. Other wide-ranging measures which have been agreed include the following:

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  firms will be asked to set aside additional facilities to provide training for those who need special attention;

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  new emphasis will be laid not on giving the unskilled some kind of unstructured training but on providing recognized skills that can win them a job;

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  better and more individual counselling on jobs and courses to obtain them;

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  easier passage for those who need it to move from unofficial into vocational training - possibly with special help from the Federal Labour Office;

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  better facilities to finish courses in easy stages or by part-time participation;

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  employers and unions to consider what combination of part-time training and part-qualification can be devised for those finding that it is difficult to follow a course through to the end in one go;

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  as a follow-up, efforts will be made to ensure such part-time qualification is properly evaluated and recognized by prospective employers;

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  girls are to be made more aware of the wide range of jobs and training facilities, and to be wooed from stereotyped views of what constitutes "jobs for girls".