Informe Nº: 20/07/2017
Employment-oriented secondary education explains much of the high employment rate and low unemployment among Germany’s young. Half of them go through vocational studies and, among them, almost all do work practices in companies. In the context of possible collaboration with Germany, even more important that promoting new investments, is to make German companies based in Argentina to contribute to the widespread growth of the vocational education.
Angela Merkel’s visit to Argentina raised expectations about the possibility of new German investments. In this framework, several German companies that are settled in the country have announced new investment projects. With less emphasis, some mentions have been made of the possibility of promoting investments in human capital through a historical institution of that country, the German dual education.
Secondary education in Germany is structured in three pillars. One is general education oriented to train young for university education. Other, of intermediate level, prepares students to follow post-secondary and tertiary studies with a career orientation. The third pillar is focused on training young people for their immediate entrance into the labor market as skilled workers after high school. In these programs, known as vocational education, general teaching are combined with work practices monitored from the school.
Information published by the OECD illustrates the characteristics and results achieved through this secondary school organization. According to Education at a Glance 2016 and Employment Outlook 2016, in Germany it can be seen that:
This data shows that half of young Germans go through the vocational education and nearly 9 out of 10 carry out work practices in companies as part of their training. This education characteristic surely explains much of the high employment rate and low youth unemployment rate. In Argentina, the same indicators are disastrous. Youth employment rate is 29% and the youth unemployment rate is 23%.
The importance of work practices as a source of educational quality is shown when comparing Germany with other European experiences. For example, in Belgium 60% and in Spain 34% of young people go through work orientations in high school, but only 6% and 1%, respectively, carry out practices in companies. Therefore, it is no coincidence that in Belgium the youth employment rate is only 21% and the unemployment rate is 22% and in Spain the youth employment rate is 19% and the unemployment rate is 48%. Although young people’s poor labor market performance responds to multiple factors, the disconnection of education and companies surely plays a leading role.
Given this evidence, it is surprising that in Argentina education for work is still associated with technical schools only. The degradation of technical schools did not take place in the ‘90s, but in the 1970s and 1980s due to the separation of these schools from the productive world, which led to an outdated curricula and technological lag. In this context, the reconstruction of education for work in modern times will not be successful insisting with the obsolete format that only considers industrial and construction orientations. A more promising road is to spread the education for work orientation to general schools (baccalaureate) incorporating work practices as part of the curricular content. A previous step is breaking down the legal and cultural barriers that cut off the possibility of using companies as an educational environment.
Secondary education for employment is effective when the school content is combined with work practices in companies. To achieve this goal, companies have a central role. They are the ones that should lead the transformation with the labor horizon of the students as their main objective. Therefore, the most strategic role German companies can play in Argentina is sharing their knowledge in order to expand and perfect the country’s still incipient education for work experiences.
