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''' GERMAN MASTERY WITH A
EXPORT HIT : EDUCATION-
TRAINING-EMPLOYMENT '''
Education in the developing world is a Fishy Story. With rising youth population,and shrinking economies, the developing world had better stop, and for once, think.
'''Your education ecosystem is just Not so good for you. Consider a short cut : Take the hard road and tie-up the demand''' Germany's vaunted education system is its latest export hit.
Like Switzerland, they have a tradition of combining apprenticeships with formal schooling for the young : ''so that education is always tied to the demand,'' she says:
When youths graduate they often have jobs to walk into.
With youth unemployment in Germany and Austria below 8% against 56% in Spain and 38% in Italy, Mrs von der Leyen has won Europe's attention and !WOW!'s applause.
Germany recently signed memoranda with Greece, Italy, Latavia, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain to help set up vocational education systems. Mrs von der Leyen discussed the topic in visits to Madrid and Paris.
There was even talk of a ''new deal'' for Europe, including bringing youths from crisis-hit countries to work in Germany and making more loans.
Germany is best known in euro-zone countries for its macroeconomic prescriptions of austerity and structural reform. So it helps politically that it should now be seen assisting people in those countries into jobs.
But does its dual-education deserve so much credit, and should other countries adopt it?
Although based on older traditions, it formally dates from 1969. Youths not interested in, or qualified for, university sign up for a progamme in which they work three or four days a week for a firm that pays and teaches them relevant skills.
The rest of the time they spend in school, completing mostly specialised courses. Chambers of Commerce and Industry associations make sure that they work and teaching are matched. After three years or so, trainees are certified and, if they make a good impression, may stay as full-time workers.
About two in three young Germans go through this system and into about 350 careers. Some end up in blue collar jobs, others in sales and marketing, shipping and agriculture, or pharmacology and accounting.
The practical nature of the education is an advantage, as is the mutual screening between potential employers and employees during training.
Yet the system existed in the 1990s, when Germany was the ''sick man of Europe'' and had high unemployment, German success today surely owes more to its labour market and welfare reforms of a decade ago and to unions wage-restraint.
In an aging and shrinking population, demography also helps, as fewer German graduates choose among more open jobs.
Luger Wossmann, an economist at the Ifo Institute in Munich, suggests that vocational education can have bad side effects. In his research, countries that combined school and work-based education -Germany, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland- did much better at getting young people into jobs.
But early training can turn into a disadvantage by the age of 50. It appears that skills learnt in vocational training ''become obsolete at a faster rate.'' Low youth unemployment today may thus come at a the cost of higher old-age unemployment tomorrow.
Admittedly, that trade-off may seem abstract in such hard-hit countries as Greece, Portugal and Spain.
If the alternative to vocational education is no training and no job, says Mr Wossmann, a dual system should be tried. That said, traditions of cooperation among state, unions, employers and schools took generations to evolve in Germanic countries. A new deal on such basis cannot be a quick fix.
With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of Germany, Austria, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Denmark. Latavia. Slovakia See Ya all on !WOW! the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:
''' A Blazing Surprise '''
Good Night & God Bless!
SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless
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