The German dual training system is still admired worldwide. This is not without reason: it is the basis for an economy characterised by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), whose outstanding features are innovative strength, creativity, adaptability, flexibility and diversity. SMEs shape this liberal democratic society and guarantee its continued existence.
Now, many small time bombs are ticking, the sum of which could slowly and continuously blow away this guarantee. Since the year 2000, the number of people in vocational training has steadily declined from 1.7 million to about 1.2 million today, while the number of students has grown from 2.2 to 2.9 million in the same period, accompanied by a striking shortage of skilled workers. According to the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (Institute of the German Economy), this shortage of qualified workers across all occupations from July 2021 to July 2022 affects on average 537,923 jobs. And to add to the explosive mix, according to a KfW study, 842,000 owners of medium-sized companies will give up their business by 2025. 61 % of them want to hand over the business to a successor – le't's hope they succeed. 300,000 even expect to close their business for good.
Loss of prosperity
It should be clear that these developments will lead to slumps in the entrepreneurial value chains and thus to a loss of prosperity. Productivity increases alone, but also internationalisation with reliable partners or the immigration and training of foreign workers can mitigate or reverse this trend. The prerequisite for this is education, training and qualification. But here too, things do not look rosy.
Tutoring in spelling
A lack of teachers, primary school pupils who cannot read or do arithmetic properly, school and university dropouts who often fail in the challenges of STEM subjects and the German language are today’s reality. The shortage of skilled workers, especially in technical professions, is one example, the inadequate skills of trainees another, as the NRW police force has painfully discovered. In order to support the trainee inspectors, tutoring courses in spelling are being offered for the first time.
Deficits
Now the question arises: what are the causes? It is not only a quantitative problem, but in the end rather a qualitative one. Excessive bureaucracy and the pettiness of the Länder prevent the education system from achieving what characterises SMEs: Adaptability and innovative strength. It is understandable that our children shape their future based on the social realities they experience. In addition to the digital world, for years they observe teachers who, not always, but usually, have gone from school to university and then back to school and thus never had the opportunity to gain extracurInternationaliricular experience. The teaching of economic realities is then naturally based on purely theoretical knowledge. In addition, there is an education bureaucracy that thinks up education in a closed room and a policy that does not dare to bring about fundamental changes. This turns education into an artificial bureaucracy-oriented, non-viable product. In essence, it is deprived of flexibility and creativity, it becomes immobile. The right to freedom of movement within the European Union, that every EU citizen is in principle entitled to enter and reside in any other member state, is already being hindered at the educational level in Germany by different education laws, requirements for curricula and teacher training. However, educational mobility, both in terms of content and physicality, is the lifeblood of a sustainable society.
What should we do?
If we want to stop the time fuse, Germany urgently needs new, cross-border thinking for educational standards, didactics and pedagogy, ultimately also management standards in public school administrations and adequate teacher training. For this, we need nationally set guard rails and foundations for schools to act on-site and on their own responsibility. This will bring confidence back into the schools, give school administrations room for manoeuvre and play off the strengths of centralised and decentralised structures. This also means including international educational perspectives from the outset and thus creating the conditions for international educational exchange and educational mobility.
Education as a transfer good
Attempts have often been made to export the dual training system and thus also to prepare the ground for the internationalisation of SMEs, but also to enable access to the German labour market. As a rule, this has failed. First and foremost because of the misunderstanding of understanding SMEs simply as small and medium-sized enterprises without taking into account their cultural characteristics that have developed over centuries. And we have forgotten that education transfer is not one-way, but only works bidirectionally. This means that both sides influence education as a transfer good and that only on an equal footing can a “new” successful educational product be created, in accordance with the different educational cultures and economic structures.
Educational mobility
The future of education is a lively exchange between different systems, such as the exchange of pupils, trainees, teachers and companies – in other words, educational mobility. Closing off our education market will lead to educational immobility. We need to break down the hard formal education barriers between countries and should start with Germany. The goal is to then build up skilled workers internationally and meet the needs both in the partner countries and in Germany. In this way, we are giving SMEs the chance to obtain qualified skilled workers, to position themselves competitively both nationally and internationally, and to enable our partners around the world to actively participate in a model of success in an appreciative manner.
National education plan
We need a national and international education initiative that works bottom-up and takes the (international) perspectives of education stakeholders as a benchmark. Pupils, teachers, the business community and especially SMEs, education experts and many more are needed and must work together to develop the “National Education Plan”. Only this way will we lead democracy and the economy into a secure future.
Text Prof. Dr. Martin Wortmann