Vocational training
The level of education in vocational training is falling, fewer and fewer young people are opting for training and at the same time the demands and need for qualified trainees are increasing rapidly.
In order to optimally prepare young people for the challenges of the world of work, we need to start at home, but above all at school. School leavers often have too little real basic understanding. This makes vocational training and continuous professional development all the more important. This is because fixed standard answers and solutions are not possible in the rapidly changing world of work.
Many companies still have vacancies for apprentices. CFL, for example, is looking for trainees for train maintenance, railroad signaling technology or telecommunications and is training to become IT specialists, electronics technicians or mechatronics engineers.
In addition to the theory taught at school, it is crucial that the trainees also receive intensive guidance and support in the company.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to find suitable young talent, particularly in the skilled trades. These professions are little known to many young people and are rarely presented as attractive or sustainable career paths in the school environment.” They are often perceived as the “last option”, which also contributes to a negative image. “Yet skilled trades in particular offer a wide range of development opportunities and secure essential infrastructures – but this is often underestimated in public perception.”
These skilled trades have changed considerably in recent years and have been modernized by technological progress and increasing digitalization.
Vocational training can still be improved. There is still a lot to be done in this context, particularly with regard to school-based courses. The level must not be lowered further just to improve the annual graduation statistics. This will not do young people any favors, as they will have difficulties integrating successfully into the job market later on.
The topic of cross-border training is also important.
Vocational training is still too often underestimated by people, but vocational training offers a whole range of development and career opportunities. However, there are still a number of weaknesses that need to be addressed through timely measures.
If, in future, high school graduates in selected professions were offered the opportunity to acquire craft skills as part of an apprenticeship after graduating from high school, the skilled trades could attract motivated and highly qualified people. The same applies to the newly planned “higher vocational training”, a vocational orientation parallel to academic training.
The Adem employment agency has a careers advice service and a careers information center to help young people on their way into working life. According to Adem, most apprenticeship vacancies are registered with the careers advice service in the following professions: Office administrator, hairdresser, retail salesperson, cook, nurse’s assistant.
Adem’s careers advice service has consistently placed over 2,000 candidates in training over the last few years. Last year, for the first time, more candidates in adult training (1,095) than young people in initial training (1,014) signed a training contract, according to the employment agency.
The employment agency sees this as a problem: Many young people who are only eligible for CCP (“Certificat de capacité professionnelle”) training due to their school-leaving qualifications, for example as an assistant chef, building cleaner, salesperson or construction worker, are unable to find a training place because there are too few of them. This poses a problem for their professional future.
Another problem is dropping out of training. It starts with orientation – school leavers do not have sufficient knowledge of what is done in companies. Compulsory internships as part of school education, which would bring pupils into contact with the skilled trades at an early stage, could help. A revision of the orientation process in conjunction with a guidance and counseling approach is necessary to ensure that motivated students are positively oriented towards vocational training based on their potential and talents.
Around a third of all training contracts are terminated in the course of training. And only one in three trainees whose training contract is terminated early immediately concludes a new training contract with another training company.
Adem cites the following reasons for terminating a training contract: trainees realize that the profession does not meet their expectations; difficulties in complying with the internal rules of the training company, such as punctuality, and difficulties in meeting school or company requirements. Health restrictions can also occur. However, all this training is of no use to the companies if the state poaches the trainees, which many companies criticize. As a company primarily trains in order to have trained and qualified staff at its disposal later on, we advocate a system in which a stakeholder, such as the state or a municipality, makes a contribution to the company’s training costs (a “transfer fee”, so to speak) if apprentices are poached after completing their training.
