“Learning for the future. VET of tomorrow – experience innovations”

What response is vocational education and training able to offer in terms of meeting the multifarious challenges facing us in future? What pioneering programmes, projects and initiatives are in the pipeline? Which design concepts need to be developed for practice in order to be able to continue to present vocational education and training as an attractive and flexible option? These and other key questions will form the focus of the 8th Vocational Education and Training Congress to be staged by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB). The BIBB Congress will take place on 7 and 8 June 2018 under the banner of “Learning for the future. VET of tomorrow – experience innovations”. The event will be held at the Berlin Congress Center (bcc) at Alexanderplatz, and just under 1,000 VET experts from Germany and abroad are expected to attend. A special early bird discount rate applies until 21 April.

The objectives of the BIBB Congress are to take stock of the current situation of vocational education and training in Germany and to demonstrate the way forwards. Opportunities which arise from circumstances such as ongoing digitalisation of the world of work will need to be seized in order to bring about further strengthening of initial and continuing vocational training in Germany. The aim is for the congress to help serve this purpose by acting as a platform for dialogue between the fields of academic research, policy making and practice.

One of the features of the programme at the BIBB Congress will be six forums scheduled to take place in parallel:

• Forum I: "Digitalisation – initial and continuing training for new worlds of work”
• Forum II: "Learning venues with a future – cooperative and digital”
• Forum III: "Work-based learning – occupational competence in Europe and the world”
• Forum IV: "School, and then what? Dual vocational education and training –
  preferences and reality”
• Forum V: "Migration and integration – the contribution of vocational training”
• Forum VI: "Healthcare and nursing – perspectives for vocational education and training”

The BIBB Congress is held at four year intervals. It provides an outstanding opportunity to network and engage in a detailed exchange of views for all vocational education and training decision makers and multipliers from the fields of policy making, trade and industry, the trade unions, academic research and VET practice at the companies, chambers, associations, guilds, educational establishments and vocational Schools.

Further information is available on the BIBB website at kongress2018.bibb.de/en. Online registration is also possible on the same site with immediate effect. An early bird fee of €269 is available until 21 April 2018. After this date, a congress fee of €349 will be charged. Deadline for registrations is 23 May 2018.

Specimen copy requested if printed.