New Institutional Linkages Between Dual Vocational Training and Higher Education: A Comparative Analysis of Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Abstract

The expansion of the service sector, changes in technology and increasing demand for abstract and codified knowledge feed the need for qualified personnel. The transformation of work has profound consequences for the process of skill acquisition in schools, vocational training institutions and the workplace. In countries like the US or France, which can be characterised as "internal labour markets" (ILMs), the link between the education system and the labour market is rather loose and it is mostly the company which is in charge of organising work and jobs. In contrast to this, in "occupational labour markets" (OLMs) like Germany or the Netherlands, the education system provides occupation-specific skills and jobs are very much structured around standardised occupations that require specific formal training (Marsden 1990;Gangl 2001). 1 We decided to put the spotlight on three countries within the O L M cluster: Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In the political economy literature, these countries have also been labelled as "collective skill systems" (Thelen and 1 Similarly, Maurice et al. (1986) distinguish between "organisational spaces" and "qualificational spaces".

Labour market developments and their significance for VET in Germany: An overview

“…Second, differential effects should be analysed for higher education graduates from the more practice-orientated universities of applied sciences and those from traditional universities. Third, we can observe further institutional differentiation within the German higher education sector with the rise of dual courses of study ( duales Studium ), which combine higher education with practical in-company training periods and thus borrow some crucial element from classical dual VET (Ebner et al, 2013; see for more detail Wolter and Kerst in this issue).…”

The Hybridization of Vocational Training and Higher Education in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland

“…In the following I present four such non-hybrid types of linkages between VET and HE (see also Ebner, Graf, and Nikolai, 2013;Dunkel, Le Mouillour, and Teichler, 2009). 50 All of these four types stand for attempts to build direct linkages (or bridges) to facilitate individual access to HE for people from VET.…”

“…While they imply that at the regulative level there are options for transferring from VET to HE, there are often normative and cultural cognitive barriers that prevent individuals from actually doing so (Bernhard, forthcoming;Ebner, Graf, and Nikolai, 2013). For example, first assessments of type 3 (admission to HE on the basis of prior VET qualifications and work experience) show that a number of underlying conditions, such as lack of specific financial support, still pose a huge barrier for such potential nontraditional students (e.g., Ulbricht, 2012 on the German case).…”

“…It is quite common for foreign observers to praise these three countries for the quality of their VET systems. 1 All three countries are part of the "collective skill system cluster" (Busemeyer and Trampusch, 2012) and are renowned for their extensive dual apprenticeship training systems at upper-secondary level (see Ebner, Graf, and Nikolai, 2013). Dual apprenticeship training distinguishes itself from vocational training in most other European countries as it integrates training in schools and companies on the basis of extensive mediation and coordination between the state, employers, and labor representatives.…”

The rise of work-based academic education in Austria, Germany and Switzerland

“…the production model and work places as well as rising educational aspirations of individuals (e.g. Hippach-Schneider et al 2013;Ebner, Graf, and Nikolai 2013). In addition, recent European reforms, like the Bologna and the Copenhagen processes, push for greater mobility between VET and HE, among other things, to reduce social inequalities linked to educational opportunities (Powell and Solga 2010;Bernhard, Graf, and Powell 2013).…”