If trainees have to bring their own digital devices to the training course, digitization in teaching cannot be far off. A new report by the trade union federation shows digital gaps.
According to a new study, training in Germany has some catching up to do in terms of digitization. Four out of ten trainees rate the digital equipment at their vocational school as only sufficient or insufficient.
Just under every second trainee feels very well or well prepared for the digital requirements of their future job as a result of the training. This emerges from the training report 2023 of the DGB youth presented in Berlin on Wednesday. Overall, according to another survey, schoolchildren have a more optimistic view of training prospects after the mood was low during the corona pandemic.
According to the DGB report, with almost 10,000 respondents, the young people affected rate the “status achieved so far in adapting training to the challenges of digital change” far more critically than companies and school staff. Only a good third of those surveyed consider the digital equipment in vocational schools to be good or very good.
Criticism of training companies
Almost 40 percent of the trainees state that they only “rarely” or even “never” receive the necessary technical equipment for digital training from their training companies. “Many vocational schools are not equipped up to date and many companies are apparently too stingy to equip their trainees appropriately and modernly,” said DGB Federal Youth Secretary Kristof Becker.
The digital quality varies greatly between the training occupations. Three out of four prospective IT specialists say that they are very well or well prepared for the digital world of work. The figures are also over 60 percent for office management clerks, bank clerks, industrial clerks and mechatronics technicians. Only 20 to 30 percent of trainees in gardening, carpentry or as a chef find the digital preparation good or very good.
Overall, 71 percent of the trainees surveyed are very satisfied or satisfied with their training, almost 3 points less than in the previous year. One in six would not recommend training in their own training company. Almost a third of the trainees surveyed have to work overtime on a regular basis. The average remuneration of the trainees surveyed is 929 euros across all training years and occupations. According to the DGB report, a total of 13 percent of the trainees surveyed “always” or “often” have to do non-training activities. The DGB called for massive investments in vocational training.
Survey: Many are positive about the future
According to another survey, schoolchildren see their training opportunities as predominantly positive. More than three quarters of the nearly 1,700 respondents rate their chances of getting an apprenticeship as good or even very good. The iconkids & youth institute interviewed them in June on behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation. The foundation announced on Wednesday that a trend reversal had been achieved after many young people had rated their prospects on the training market negatively in recent years.
From an economic point of view, however, the situation remains tense: tens of thousands of training places remain unfilled because there are fewer school leavers than there were ten years ago. According to figures from the Federal Employment Agency in July, 228,000 training positions are currently unfilled. In 2022 there was a slight year-on-year increase of 0.8 percent to around 470,000 new training contracts. However, this was eight percent less than in the last Corona year before the crisis, 2019.
However, among young people with a low level of school education, the impression is still widespread that they have bad or rather bad chances of getting a training place: in this group, 26 percent of those surveyed are pessimistic about the training situation.
Source: Stern
