Vocational Training

Anyone working in a vocational field today must adjust to much shorter cycles of innovation than in the past. The international job market demands more knowledge and a more comprehensive education than ever before. And the wealth of information, skills and know-how a professional must have increases constantly. This makes life-long learning a must. If professionals want to "stay on the ball" in this period of globalisation, they must be willing to meet innovation head on. National educational systems support in this process, and they must therefore be internationally competitive and conform to worldwide standards. They need to be flexible, to react to the constant changes in the labour market. Those not willing to change and adapt will simply miss the boat – and as such deny themselves a decisive competitive advantage.

Business and politics have to work together closely to develop professional educational systems designed to meet the demands of the future. These systems need to offer employees at firms, administrations and political institutions a wide range of demand-oriented qualification programmes. Know-how in a specific field is no longer enough. Employees and decision-makers need to have access to intercultural advanced training, so they can develop their language and cross-cultural skills and act successfully in a foreign country. Small and medium-sized companies in developing and transition countries are often not capable of providing their employees with the necessary qualifications. An economy looking to be competitive needs both experts who enjoy a continual process of on-the-job training and qualified personnel involved in professional training. This is why Inwent offers its partner countries programmes for professional education that do much more than simply qualify individual participants. Our programmes also create structures and encourage the development of systems. We focus on educating information multipliers who carry conceptual, expert and methodological decision-making and management skills into their homelands and international learning communities. Here they help increase the efficiency and performance of existing professional training systems and encourage local societies to accept new standards. The range of topics addressed includes the development and reform of national educational systems, technological cooperation, the transfer of management skills, curriculum development, didactics and methods of developing teachers and teaching materials, and the formation of "train the trainer" networks.

An advanced training seminar in Uzbekistan is just one example of our work in teacher training and how we support economic reform via professional training. In the near future, around half a million young people will need to be trained here annually, a whole army of professionals that the economy desperately requires. To meet their needs, Uzbekistan must develop more vocational schools and increase the number of teachers and trainers. The Uzbek government is backing this expansion of the vocational training network: More than a third of the national budget goes towards education. Inwent offers six-month training courses that provide technical trainers with expert and pedagogical information, enabling them to work as information multipliers in advanced teacher training.

In the Mediterranean states of Algeria and Tunisia, Inwent is assisting with the development and management of telecentres. These are aimed at providing lower income groups with access to modern information and communication technologies. The programme focuses primarily on providing women and young people with skills and know-how via computer-supported learning programmes, both on and offline. This will improve their opportunities on the job market. In Vietnam the vocational training system is also unable to sufficiently meet labour market demands. Due in large part to the country’s impressive rate of economic growth, qualifications are needed that people simply do not have the training to meet. Inwent’s "Employment-Oriented Reform Processes in TVET Vietnam" programme is helping to develop job-oriented vocational training and continuing education programmes that meet the country’s current needs. Low income groups are given special attention.

In Europe, North America, and Asia firms have increasingly adjusted to the ongoing process of globalisation on the markets in recent years. It is becoming increasingly clear that internationalisation confronts employees with new challenges, both in firms operating worldwide and in small and medium-sized companies. Human resource directors, trainers, teachers and other information multipliers must therefore familiarize themselves with new, innovative approaches to in-house training and continuing education. Inwent offers advance training opportunities in Germany and abroad for just these target groups. Within Europe and in cooperation with partners in America and Asia, Inwent helps people participate in a range of professional training opportunities in other countries. We also provide advice on international mobility.

D+C online: 550,000 additional vocational-school teachers by 2010 

Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) information on the topic