50 years of the BBiG – a guarantor of high quality

The Vocational Training Act entered into force 50 years ago on 1 September 1969. Friedrich Hubert Esser, President of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), marked the occasion by making the following statement.

The Vocational Training Act, which entered into force on 1 September 1969, is of crucial significance to vocational education and training in Germany. It is a recognised guarantor of high-quality VET which—then as now—offers the necessary flexibility to allow stakeholders in the fields of policy making and practice to arrive at precisely tailored solutions. This helps to ensure Germany's competitiveness as an economic location.

The Vocational Training Act, without which the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training would not exist, is a unique construct worldwide. Many states within and outside Europe seeking to reform their vocational education and training and to align systems in a more practice-oriented way use it as a “blueprint” to regulate the important partnership between the state and trade and industry which is so crucial to the functionality of successful vocational education and training.

The Vocational Training Act also affords sufficient scope for the further developments that are required. The updating of the act currently being planned will provide stakeholders involved in both policy and practice with an opportunity to generate the necessary impetuses for this future development. The challenges that lie ahead include digitalisation, increasing the attractiveness of vocational education and training, alignment of modern initial and advanced training regulations in a competence-oriented way and, last but not least, the growing significance of continuing vocational education and training.

The Vocational Training Act provides BIBB with a rigorous remit in terms of the extensive and diverse tasks the institute carries out in the areas of research, regulation and provision of services for vocational education and training. For this reason, the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training sees the 50th birthday of the Vocational Training Act both as a stimulus and a guide as it seeks to continue to make an indispensable contribution to the ongoing future development of the vocational education and training system in Germany.

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