Status Conference eQualification: fully qualified – a thing of the past
28th March 2022 — How can the repair of an offshore wind turbine be safely learnt in the classroom using virtual reality? How can augmented reality help to cope more effectively with crisis situations such as floods and landslides? And what opportunities does the digital networking of people, machines and objects offer for the world of work? On four event days, the digital 13th Status Conference eQualification was dedicated to very different topics in vocational education and training. "We want as many people as possible to take up continuing education and training and to stay with it - throughout their entire working lives," said Dr Jens Brandenburg, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), at the opening of the conference, promising a new departure in education policy with reference to the Vocational Education and Training Excellence Initiative. "Because there is no such thing as being finished with education and training in the 21st century. Not for anyone."
DLR-PT – a long-standing partner in the digitalisation of vocational education and training
Since 2012, DLR-PT has been advising and supporting the BMBF in the implementation of the Digitisation in Vocational Education and Training funding programme. "To this end, we have helped shape numerous funding guidelines with our interdisciplinary expertise and strengthened knowledge transfer through innovative methods and networking formats," explains Ingrid Höptner, scientific officer at DLR-PT. "Since the Covid 19 pandemic, we have been developing and managing exclusively virtual event formats – including the one for this year's status conference."
In managing the event, the BMBF relies on a wide range of services provided by DLR-PT -– from the conception of the content for the virtual event series to the organisational preparation and follow-up as well as the management of external service providers to the moderation of individual workshops. Special programme items, such as the sessions on regional exchange, were designed and implemented by DLR-PT, which was also responsible for researching and selecting experts for the presentations and panel discussions.
Innovative formats and topic ideas
On the opening day of the status conference, the focus was on professional exchange. On four panels, stakeholders from practice, science and industry discussed current topics in vocational education and training such as digital continuing education and training, cooperation between learning venues, digital participation and the future of work and education.
The second day of the event began with a focus on the "Digital Media in Vocational Education and Training" funding programme. For this day, the experts from DLR-PT had issued and evaluated a "Call for Participation". Finally, eleven successful funding projects presented themselves in so-called project loupes. The projects deal with topics such as media competence and inclusion in vocational education and training or investigate how virtual reality can enrich vocational education and training.
On the third day, four clusters invited participants to a regional exchange. The participants assigned themselves to the East, the South, the North or the West and dealt with the potentials of their region on the basis of a SWOT analysis. Two staff members from DLR-PT were responsible for the content and organisation of each cluster.
In his keynote speech on the role of the digital in creative processes, Professor Dr Sascha Friesike, Deputy Director of the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society / Berlin University of the Arts, warned against eradicating boredom. Friesike sees innovation in the "symbiosis of analogue and digital components".
On the last day of the event, project participants presented their successful work of recent years at more than 30 exhibition stands – from the painter's workshop to care in oncology and virtual sandy beaches to building renovation. In addition, the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training presented its new podcast series "foraus.gehört". And the DLR Projektträger demonstrated the digital pinboard of the Status Conference, which serves the transfer of knowledge by displaying numerous contents, the "graphic recordings" of the panel discussions and notes from the participants.