Stakeholders’ roles in VET in times of digitalisation – a German-Swiss comparison

Digitalisation is affecting vocational education and training in a multitude of ways and at various levels. VET stakeholders each develop their own proposals and recommendations as to how to react to the challenges of digitalisation. These are determined by their respective roles and vested interests.

Implementation of the proposals may have implications for the existing stakeholder structure and result in alterations to the interplay established between participants thus far. In the vocational education and training systems of Germany and Switzerland, the principle stakeholders comprise the state, companies and employers’ associations, trade unions—although these participate in different ways and with varying degrees of intensity—and education and training providers such as vocational schools.

Within the scope of the German-Swiss comparison, the object of investigation is to discover whether different developments may be observed in these two dual-based VET systems in respect of the role and interaction of stakeholders as well as the impact on governance structures.