German education and training sector internationally successful with qualifications for specialist staff

The practical training of skilled workers through the teaching of occupational employability skills is the unique selling point and key sales argument in international training markets for German exporters of initial and continuing vocational education and training provision. This is shown by the latest “Trend Barometer 2019, the Initial and Continuing VET Export Sector”, which iMOVE at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) regularly uses to survey opinions and developments in the sector. Around half of the 164 training exporters surveyed regard offers with a dual focus as providing a competitive advantage over providers from other countries.

Continuing vocational education and training leads the way among provision from German training exporters. In each case, over 40 percent of providers implement continuing training either directly in their target markets or for international participants in Germany. The key themes are training activities in the technical sector, training for management, and training provision for medical and social services.

Overall, the sector continues to assess its international competitiveness as very high. Significantly more than half of those surveyed expected to see an increase in training exports in their organizations.

 “The findings demonstrate that the ‘Made in Germany’ initial and continuing education and training offers continue to be highly popular with foreign countries and companies abroad,” emphasized BIBB President Friedrich Hubert Esser. “The combination of theoretical and practical initial and continuing vocational education and training which facilitates employment remains the best training pathway for enabling people to prepare themselves for the rapidly changing demands in an increasingly digital working and professional environment.”

The strongest export region outside Europe is Asia with the most important market being China. This is followed by North and South America, and Africa. According to the survey findings, these regions also offer the greatest potential as future markets.

Foreign companies and foreign government bodies are the key groups of customers for German training exporters. Direct business partnerships with them have a much more important role to play than the implementation of projects for national and international donor organisations or civil society organizations.

Despite the rapid advances in digital communication, it is primarily personal contact which matters when making international cooperation successful in the training sector. Reliable partners and reliable contacts abroad, extensive information about the target market and intercultural competence are, according to the iMOVE Trend Barometer 2019, by far the most important success factors in the export of education and training.

The Trend Barometer is available online at www.imove-germany.de/publikationen (German only).

iMOVE is the export initiative of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). As a division of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), iMOVE, with its extensive service offer, supports German providers of initial and continuing vocational education and training in the development of international markets. With its brand “Training – Made in Germany”, iMOVE promotes German competence in the field of VET abroad.

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