Edu­ca­ti­on: Pro­por­ti­on of se­con­da­ry school pu­pils fal­ling – more high school gra­dua­tes

Around 140,000 fe­wer app­ren­ti­ce­ships

Af­ter grammar school, stu­dents go to uni­ver­si­ty, se­con­da­ry school and midd­le school stu­dents do an app­ren­ti­ce­ship: This equa­ti­on no lon­ger ap­pli­es. Ac­cor­ding to a re­cent stu­dy, the pro­por­ti­on of school lea­vers who start an app­ren­ti­ce­ship is in­cre­asing – to a good 47% at the last count.

Young peo­p­le with a se­con­da­ry school lea­ving cer­ti­fi­ca­te are ap­par­ent­ly fin­ding it in­cre­asing­ly dif­fi­cult to get a trai­ning place. At the same time, the pro­por­ti­on of high school gra­dua­tes start­ing an app­ren­ti­ce­ship has ri­sen si­gni­fi­cant­ly in re­cent ye­ars. This is shown by a stu­dy com­mis­sio­ned by the Ber­tels­mann Foun­da­ti­on. The aut­hor of the stu­dy, Die­ter Doh­men, is quo­ted in a press re­lease from the foun­da­ti­on as say­ing that vo­ca­tio­nal trai­ning is no lon­ger at­trac­ti­ve for high school gra­dua­tes.

Se­con­da­ry school pu­pils less li­kely to start trai­ning

Bet­ween 2011 and 2021, the pro­por­ti­on of young peo­p­le who star­ted an app­ren­ti­ce­ship with a se­con­da­ry school lea­ving cer­ti­fi­ca­te fell by a fifth. The al­re­a­dy dif­fi­cult si­tua­ti­on for young peo­p­le wi­t­hout a school-lea­ving cer­ti­fi­ca­te has re­cent­ly be­co­me even more acu­te. In con­trast, the pro­por­ti­on of school-lea­vers with a high school di­plo­ma who opted for an app­ren­ti­ce­ship rose from 35% in 2011 to 47.4% in 2021. Be­fo­re the co­ro­na­vi­rus pan­de­mic in 2019, the pro­por­ti­on was even slight­ly hig­her (48.5%).

Trade unio­nist: Em­ploy­ers „sel­ect the best“

„It sim­ply does­n’t add up when em­ploy­ers com­plain about a lack of ap­pli­cants on the one hand, but on the other hand of­ten sel­ect the best ap­pli­cants,“ said DGB De­pu­ty Chair­wo­man Elke Han­nack to the Ger­man Press Agen­cy. „Young peo­p­le with a se­con­da­ry school lea­ving cer­ti­fi­ca­te also need the chan­ce of an app­ren­ti­ce­ship.“ The­re is enorm­ous po­ten­ti­al for more trai­ning and thus for alle­via­ting the shorta­ge of skil­led workers: „As a so­cie­ty, we can­not af­ford to let this lie fallow.“ Ac­cor­ding to trade unio­nist Han­nack, it is im­portant that im­pro­ve­ments are made to the plan­ned trai­ning gua­ran­tee. The co­ali­ti­on go­vern­ment has enshri­ned the gua­ran­tee in its co­ali­ti­on agree­ment.

Fe­wer app­ren­ti­ce­ships in the long term

Ac­cor­ding to the stu­dy, the num­ber of app­ren­ti­ce­ships has fal­len in a long-term com­pa­ri­son: while the last peak was in 2007, when the­re were still a good 844,000 peo­p­le in trai­ning, the num­ber was 706,000 in 2021. The co­ro­na­vi­rus pan­de­mic was a tur­ning point here. In pre­vious ye­ars, the num­ber had ri­sen slight­ly in the me­an­ti­me.

Source: br24​.de