Making vocational education and training cooperation sustainable
How can German knowledge and a great deal of practical experience about the structures, content and needs of vocational education and training reach the BMBF's partner countries in a targeted and sustainable manner? The CooperationVET framework announcement provides an answer to this question. In exploratory and implementation projects, German VET know-how is to be made available to partner countries that want to reform their VET in line with the German model.
Vocational qualification is a challenge for the German economy on a global scale. Value chains and innovation cycles are aligned with international competition. Bilateral vocational training cooperation lays the foundation for successful innovation transfer and sustainable market access, because innovative technologies can only be sold on foreign markets if suitable staff for production, maintenance and repair are available there.
Researchers and social partners were consulted
Ten years of helping to shape international cooperation in vocational education and training (iBBZ), the development, implementation and evaluation of five funding initiatives, technical support for bilateral BMBF cooperation – this extensive experience, as well as the 360-degree perspective offered by DLR-PT as a transdisciplinary whole, has now resulted in a comprehensive framework announcement. For this, DLR Projektträger provided the conceptual basis in terms of funding law, subject matter and cooperation policy and conducted consultations with researchers and social partners – indispensable when dealing with the topic of vocational education and training. In addition, orientation towards the reform needs of the partner countries was a central guiding principle. Ownership in the target country is critical for the sustainability of project results.
Extensive experience as well as the 360-degree perspective offered by the DLR Projektträger as a transdisciplinary whole now result in a comprehensive framework announcement.
CooperationVET is embedded in the political dialogues and multi-stakeholder management of the iBBZ, which DLR-PT supports technically. The direct connection of the funding instrument to bilateral, international and national cooperation formats allows the experts of DLR Projektträger to design project funding in a customised, knowledge- and experience-based and demand-oriented manner. DLR Projektträger provided the technical and legal basis for the conception of the new framework announcement. It kicked off the implementation of the initiative with an information workshop for 250 interested parties in November.
DLR Projektträger brings together funding needs and the iBBZ community
The promotion of innovative, original and sometimes risky projects goes beyond the technical-administrative supervision of individual projects. DLR-PT therefore also serves as a platform for the transfer of knowledge and experience between pilot projects, stakeholders and research. To this end, DLR Projektträger has created an efficient structure of expert forums, status conferences and strategic working groups, from which an iBBZ community has emerged. This community includes education service providers and researchers as well as the economic and social partners that are important for vocational education and training: Chambers of Industry and Commerce, Chambers of Handicrafts, Chambers of Commerce Abroad and trade unions. DLR-PT moderates the expert discussion and allows the different perspectives to flow into the prudent, demand-oriented implementation and further development of the cooperation and the CooperationVET instrument.
One meeting point for the community was the expert forum on iBBZ in May 2022, which was attended by 120 people. Another instrument for transferring knowledge and experience, the brochure series "Vocational Education and Training International", has been published by DLR Projektträger since 2017. DLR-PT makes targeted use of impulses from these different formats of technical communication to shape iBBZ thematically – from the development of funding calls to project implementation in the target countries to the development of new funding concepts. In this way, bilateral cooperation, project funding and technical communication intertwine in a constructive manner that promotes innovation.