Between pressure to act and framework for action – the actors in the German and Swiss vocational education and training systems in the face of digitalisation

Abstract

The governance of Vocational Education and Training (VET) systems in Germany and Switzerland is determined by a constellation of actors that has grown over many years. This constellation has long-term elements and at the same time it is a flexible system that is subject to constant pressure to change, just like the economic and social structures that support them. One driver of change in recent years is undoubtedly the so-called digitalisation, which has set in motion sustainable processes of change in companies, called Industry 4.0. These dynamic developments can lead to a change in the distribution of roles among the actors. An appropriate analysis contributes to highlighting the differences in the governance structures of the two systems. The article shows the relevance of the different legal frameworks for the actors’ options for action in the context of digitalisation and its consequences on the adaptability of the two VET systems. Furthermore, it points out some areas of conflict in the respective actor constellations.

Keywords

Vocational Education and Training actors digitalisation Germany Switzerland governance education policy

Introduction

Digitalisation is affecting vocational education and training in a multitude of ways and at various levels. Vocational Education and Training (VET) stakeholders each develop their own proposals and recommendations as to how to react to the challenges of digitalisation. These are determined by their respective roles and vested interests. In the vocational education and training systems of Germany and Switzerland, the principle stakeholders comprise the state, companies and employers’ associations, trade unions – although these participate in different ways and with varying degrees of intensity – and education and training providers such as vocational schools. Implementation of the proposals may have implications for the existing stakeholder structure and result in alterations to the interplay established between participants thus far. Within the scope of the German-Swiss comparison, the objective of investigation was to discover whether different developments may be observed in these two dual-based VET systems in respect of the role and interaction of stakeholders in the context of digitalisation. The legal frameworks serve as decisive factors in determining which options for action are available to the individual actors and thus played a crucial role in the study.

Stakeholder structures admittedly always represent a dynamic system in which individual collaborators strive to expand or alter their influence or role rather than constituting a rigid construct. To this extent, any change in interaction is not an entirely current phenomenon. Stakeholders are generally involved in a process of negotiation, which is confrontational to one degree or another. They coordinate their views and find solutions which shape and institutionalise vocational education and training (Wettstein et al., 2014). The established constellation may shift in favour of or to the detriment of one stakeholder or another. It is, however, also possible for new stakeholders to enter the arena whilst others become meaningless (Kiener, 2004a). In the Swiss Federal Constitution of 1999, for example, responsibility for regulation of the areas of health, social affairs and art in vocational training was removed from the cantons and transferred to the Confederation. This example also shows the importance of the legal constitution of the governance structures, that is, the legal framework within which the stakeholders operate and the legal regulations by which their role is initially determined. The analysis and interpretation of the stakeholders’ proposals for action must therefore take place against the background of the legal framework.

Digitalisation is an accelerator of change. It thus might have an impact on the established stakeholder constellation and can furthermore serve as a magnifying glass of possible alterations in collaboration between parties involved in the VET system. Systemic changes may go largely unnoticed at first. The overall cumulation of supposedly minor educational policy measures and technological and societal changes that are sometimes of global origin can bring about significant effects on education systems and on their governance mechanisms. Digitalisation and all its attendant aspects, such as issues relating to changes to work, work processes, task profiles, competencies and so forth, exert a direct effect on education systems. Nevertheless, there can be considerable differences in terms of whether and how national educational policies react. An investigation of the respective governance structures may assist in providing explanations.

Background

The VET systems in Germany and Switzerland are regularly placed in the same group in system typologies and are perceived as very similar, as both are determined by a strongly collectivist interaction between the state and the economy and initial VET is largely determined by in-company learning (Gonon, 2005; Greinert, 2010). However, beneath this surface lie considerable structural and organisational differences. The role of the trade unions (Emmenegger et al., 2020), the form and organisation of how the economy is involved in central design processes, but especially the federal division of regulatory responsibilities for the school side are worth mentioning here (Greinert, 2015). The rapid process of digitalisation directly confronts vocational education and training with demands for rapid adaptation of educational content and digital teaching and learning environments due to its proximity to company work processes. This creates pressure for action and justification for the actors. Digitalisation exerts an exceptionally strong and short-term pressure for change on VET systems and thus makes it possible to understand and theoretically classify the different reactions and responses of the systems.

As Gonon (2016a) notes, VET systems do not collapse under pressure to adapt, but rather they develop considerable stability, which means that they usually change rather gradually. They remain stable even in a highly volatile environment. However, the way in which VET systems undergo these gradual adjustment processes depends on their nation-specific characteristics and inertia, which is based on historical path dependencies (Gonon, 2016a). Systems characterised by cooperative forms of governance in VET where there is a particularly close interlocking of actors also develop different adaptation dynamics. It is particularly the superficial similarity of the two collectivist training regimes in Germany and Switzerland that makes them a suitable setting for the comparative analysis. It opens the view to more subliminal differences in the national governance mechanisms and their consequences for the forms of adaptation of the overall system to the challenges posed by digitalisation.

The VET system in Germany has been predominantly categorised as self-preserving (self-stabilising) (Trampusch and Busemeyer, 2010). The updating and reorganisation of training regulations as well as the involvement of companies, associations and trade unions in the design and steering makes the system particularly resilient to changes and challenges and can thus also prove to be particularly adaptable with regard to the challenges posed by digitalisation.

However, the interests of large companies, which want to see their changing competence needs covered, are increasingly creating a transformative pattern of institutional change in their favour (Thelen, 2007; Thelen and Busemeyer, 2008). In this context, the decline in the willingness of large companies to provide training in the 1980s to 1990s is cited with the consequence of the establishment of a transitional system, the introduction of 2-year training contrary to the positioning of the trade unions and the skilled trades, the demand for company-based examinations and the testing of modularisation and flexibilisation of training in large companies with the support of federal government programmes (Thelen, 2004, 2007; Thelen and Busemeyer, 2008). The motivation for the federal government’s support of the interests of large companies is seen on the one hand in strengthening its own role vis-à-vis the trade unions and SMEs, and on the other hand in returning the increased costs for vocational training, especially for the transition system, to the companies (Busemeyer, 2009).

According to Trampusch and Busemeyer (2010), developments in Switzerland since 1998 show characteristics of both patterns, transformative as well as self-stabilising changes. On the one hand, the reform in the commercial sector in 1998 and 2003 is assessed as transformative, as it led to a flexibilisation and greater adaptation to their specific requirement profiles, in favour of the banking sector in particular. Both trade unions and SMEs took a critical view of this development but were unable to prevail against pressure from the large companies in the banking sector and support from government agencies, including the Federal Office for Professional Education and Technology and its predecessor institution. In contrast, a self-stabilising pattern is drawn by the reform of the Vocational Training Act of 2002, which was intended to improve the adaptability of the VET system as a whole (Kiener, 2004b). Thus it postulates the model of vocational education and training as a variable and flexible one-size-fits-all model (Kiener, 2004a) and extends it to the areas of health, social welfare and the arts, which had become the responsibility of the federal government through a constitutional amendment in 1999. The fact that the state side, as exemplified above, acts in different alliances is interpreted to mean that a balance must be found between the interests of large international export-focused companies and more domestic Swiss SMEs (Trampusch and Busemeyer, 2010). This theoretical background was taken up and, by analysing the legal framework, the debates as well as the proposals of the respective national actors, it was examined which changes in the constellation of actors they could lead to in Germany and Switzerland and to what extent they follow the previous explanatory patterns.

The comparative analyses of the legal frameworks in which the actors operate and the question of how they actually react to the pressure to change through digitalisation reveal which structural conditions tend to increase or inhibit the adaptability of the system as a whole. The interaction between the respective actor constellation and the legal framework in which it is embedded is understood as a kind of dynamic organism or network (Latour, 1996, 2007). Organisations, legal structures as well as individuals are together perceived as a dynamic system or entity, which has its specific individuality and differs from other networks as a whole and in its potential dynamic development. The pressure of digitalisation to change now meets these networks, that is, systems and resolves reactions in various ways. The digitalisation is seen as an additional actor or actant (ibid.). Based on the above stated theoretical background of the two differently categorised VET systems in Germany (self-preserving) and Switzerland (transformative/self-stabilising), it was to be expected that the networks/systems in Switzerland and Germany not only would react but that they would react differently. Thus, it was assumed that the advisory bodies in Switzerland, which exist at all political levels and in which both state actors, the federal government and the cantons, as well as the organisations of the world of work, are represented, can make Switzerland-wide recommendations or decisions more quickly than is possible in the highly fragmented VET system in Germany, where educational federalism must be observed instead. Also, the organisation of governmental responsibility for VET and its formal integration with the other educational sectors as well as the organisation for innovation and research in Switzerland (Backes-Gellner and Pfister, 2019) are more suitable to further develop VET across educational sectors and with a focus on innovative approaches. This has already become evident, for example, in the much earlier initiative to put tertiary vocational education on a formal par with higher education in comparison to Germany.

The dynamics of digitalisation and its immediate impact on work processes is a challenge for the adaptability of VET systems. The actors are challenged to make quick but also sustainable adjustments to training standards and curricula. Education policy considerations may have to be made on how to accelerate decision processes. Employers, who play a central role in both VET systems, have their hand on the pulse of developments, so to speak. They directly contribute their experience from industry, business and the skilled trades. It is therefore understandable that they want to speed up processes, while vocational schools and training staff need time to adapt because they first have to build up competences and develop teaching and learning materials. There also might be a contrast between short-term and long-term strategic approaches. This increased conflict potential can basically be solved in different ways: by increasing the role and influence of individual actors at the expense of others (Kiener, 2004a), by the emergence of new actors or even by improving cooperation, by simplifying joint coordination processes and by intensifying cooperation between the actors as a whole. Finally, the response may also be new or changed regulatory frameworks.

Scope

The project initially examined and analysed proposals made by stakeholders in respect of how the vocational education and training systems should in their view react to the challenge at hand. Its primary objective and focus is, however, the extent to which suggestions and recommendations may have ramifications for the established stakeholder structures which characterise VET governance processes. The starting point for selecting the group of actors to be studied was the legal regulations that explicitly assign a role to individual actors in shaping the VET systems.

In Switzerland, these are the collaborative partners stated in Article 1 of the Federal Act on Vocational and Professional Education and Training (BGG). As far as Germany is concerned, the reference is to the stakeholders or stakeholder groups which are represented on the BIBB Board pursuant to § 92 of the Vocational Training Act (BBiG). The four parties in question are the Federal Government, the federal states, the employers’ organisations including the chamber associations, and the trade unions, the so-called social partners.

Alongside these stakeholders governing policy within the national VET system, there are also other actors which play crucial roles in terms of delivering vocational training and ensuring its successful implementation. Each of the latter also has differing degrees of structural leeway at their own level or within their area of responsibility. They particularly include the individual companies offering training and training providers such as schools and organisers of inter-company courses and education and training staff. The recommendations and demands of these stakeholders were also covered in the study. Because digitalisation creates multifarious and multi-layered consequences for the vocational training system, it appears especially important to take their perspective into account. Aspects such as dealing with new media, new didactic approaches, changes in the tasks of education and training staff and the growing necessity of lifelong learning for employees all have a strong bearing on stakeholders and stakeholder groups not previously involved in the governance of vocational education and training. And yet they have a particularly crucial part to play in securing the future attractiveness of vocational training.¹

In summary, this means categorising the actors into four groups. The federal and regional governments form the first group (1), the second group comprises the non-state stakeholders which are formally authorized by legal regulations (i.e. employers’ associations, trade unions and organizations of the world of work (OdA)) to play a direct shaping role in the VET system (2). The third and fourth groups contain organisations and associations that represent groups, which are not legally authorized to act in the formalized VET governance processes but are nevertheless core actors as they are involved in the provision of IVET e.g. VET providers/schools (3) and VET teachers (4), see Table 1. This categorisation reflects the legal constitution of the VET system. It does not make any statements about whether an actor is more or less relevant in implementation.

Table 1.

Categories of stakeholders in the context of the project.

	Direct actors	Indirect actors
State actors	Federal and regional actors (1)	Public VET schools, Public research institutes (3)
Non-state actors	Employers’ associations, trade unions, organizations of the world of work (OdA) (2)	VET teacher associations, Private VET schools, Private research institutions, Private initiatives in VET (4)

Source: own illustration.

Within the scope of the project and based on Scharpf (2000), the term stakeholder structure incorporates the parties involved, their strategic options and their preferences in respect of the intended outcome of their activities.

Governance is viewed as a methodological instrument of description and analysis which allows the interaction between stakeholders and stakeholder groups to be evaluated and understood (Gonon, 2016b).

The term digitalisation is assigned a broad definition within the context of the project. It denotes the technologies and work processes which are undergoing ever more rapid change at companies and firms and the effects of these on tasks and competence requirements.

Methods

The methodological procedure was divided into two phases. The literature research and analysis (a) followed by the interview phase (b).

(a) Literature research and analysis

Literature research and analysis are based on an extensive inspection and evaluation of existing primary and secondary literature as well as non-academic publications focussing on Switzerland and Germany and relating to the topic of digitalisation and its consequences for education systems in the time from 2016 to 2019, as well as to the topic of the legal framework.

In a first step, we conducted internet and literature database research with selected keywords. Keywords were in particular digitalisation, VET, VET systems and actors/stakeholders. In the context of this work, we could identify five thematic clusters. These clusters are subdivided in seven subcategories which were numbered according to the relevance to the research focus of the project (from highest 7 to lowest 1) (Table 2).

Table 2.

Categorization of results of literature research.

	Thematic areas	Relevance
Cluster 1	Directly addressing the role of stakeholders or constellation of actors in VET	7
Cluster 2	Organisation of governance processes on system level	6
	Organisation of processes of the development of training standards	5
Cluster 3	Skills and competences	4
Cluster 4	Labour market/polarisation	3
	Tasks of jobs/work processes	2
Cluster 5	Learning and teaching methods	1

Source: own illustration.

In a next step we directly checked the websites of the different identified relevant stakeholders, see Table 1. The search led to a huge number of recommendations, proposals and initiatives of the actors, which were clustered according to the field of VET they addressed, for example, development processes of learning content, continuing VET, teacher/trainer qualification and school equipment. In some cases, the role of the actors or individual actors was also explicitly mentioned. Furthermore, we constantly consulted different research literature databases, for example, Google scholar, BIBB repository, ERIC and VOCED for research literature on the project topic.

The research results were synthesized within each (sub)group of actors (see Table 1) and analysed according to the question on the extent to which the role of the stakeholders or cooperation of the stakeholders in established VET governance processes is changing or could change. These syntheses subsequently served as a basis for national comparison, both within the respective actor group and across actors.

(b) Interviews

The aim of the interview phase was to mirror and verify the information obtained through extensive literature research with the subjective experience of experts from the institutions of the stakeholder groups and placing them into a larger context. The starting point for the selection of the interview partners was the four groups of stakeholders (see Table 1) and the institutions belonging to each of them. 16 expert interviews were conducted with stakeholder representatives in Switzerland and Germany who work at the interface between vocational education and training and digitalisation (Table 3).

Table 3.

Overview of interviews related to actors and institution.

Actor	Institution
Germany
Employers’ association	Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA)
Chamber of crafts	Koblenz Chamber of Crafts (HWK)
Trade union	German Trade Union Confederation (DGB)
Trade union	Industrial Metal Workers’ Union
Federation	Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
Federal state	Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs of Lower Saxony
School supervision for the vocational colleges	Cologne District Government
Teaching staff	Federal Association of Vocational Education and Training Teachers e. V. (BvLB)
Switzerland
Canton	Department of Education, Bern
Canton	Department of Education and Culture, Lucerne
Association	Swiss Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
Employers’ association	Federal Association of Swiss Employers’ Associations
Association/organisation of the world of work (OdA)	Swissmem
Association/organisation of the world of work (OdA)	ICT-Vocational Education and Training Switzerland
Trade union	Travail.Suisse
Teaching staff	BCH (Vocational Education and Training Switzerland)

Source: own illustration.

Guidelines were used to conduct the semi-standardised expert interviews. According to Niebert and Gropengiesser (2013) guideline-based interviews ensure a certain open-endedness of the contents and rather serve as an orientation. As a result, the course of the interview adapts to the respective interview partners and their answers. In this way, the guidelines structure the introduced topics but do not restrict the course of the interview. Through the use of open-ended questioning, the semi-standardised interview represents a flexible approach which allows unanticipated responses and issues to emerge and ensures the exploration of spontaneous issues raised by the interviewee (Coughlan et al., 2009). In this case, questions were asked about the interests, role and activities of their organization in the VET system, about their view of the importance of digitalisation in VET and on acquired action, changes and activities as well as on how they see their organisation´s role in the future.

The interviews were recorded with the consent of the interview partners and transcribed for further analysis based on the qualitative content analysis as evaluation method (Mayring and Fenzl, 2019). Here, the summary content analysis was used. The summary content analysis is particularly useful if one is interested in the content level of the material. Here each interview was reduced to a short text in which the essential contents have been retained. All interviews have been conducted by one of the authors or both and analysed by both authors in succession. After the interview phase was completed, their results were used for review and more in-depth interpretation of the document analysis.

Results

Two central aspects became evident during the project. The literature review made it clear that especially the state actors in Group 1 in Germany and Switzerland have different options for action due to the respective constitutional structure of competences. These differences are reflected in divergent approaches and initiatives (7.1). Both the literature analysis and the interviews showed where the content-related VET policy conflict lines run between the actors and what consequences this may have for the cooperation practised to date or the role of individual actors (7.2).

Different options for action as effects of diverging governance structures

The basis and framework for political action are the legal regulations that grant the actors a defined scope of action and primarily determine their role in shaping the VET system. This section illustrates by way of example the different options for action available to state actors for shaping the two VET systems in the face of digital change.

In both countries, there are a large number of state initiatives and programmes in the context of digitalisation for the area of vocational education and training (Hippach-Schneider and Rieder, 2021). The digital equipment of schools, the question of a sensible and systematic use of digital teaching and learning materials as well as corresponding new didactic concepts are addressed. The area of continuing vocational education and training for employees in general and educational staff in particular also plays a role in the topic tableau, as well as the associated financing issues. Although there is a great deal of overlap in the fields of education policy action addressed by the state actors, differences between Switzerland and Germany become apparent with regard to the approach and conception of the activities.

The reason for this is that in Switzerland, in contrast to Germany, since a constitutional amendment in 1999, comprehensive responsibility for vocational and professional education and training (VPET) lies with the federal government, for all occupational areas, whether school-based, company-based or inter-company, and also including the health professions. This enables the federal government in Switzerland to strategically govern the VPET system in a coherent manner and as an integral part of the entire education system. Nevertheless, the organisation of VPET is seen as a joint task of the Confederation, the cantons and the organisations of the world of work (ODA). This is already referred to in the first article of the VET Act, Art. 1 BBG. This joint partnership ensures the interplay between strategic decision-making and operational implementation.

In Germany, on the other hand, responsibility for dual training is divided: the federal government is responsible for regulating the company-based part, while the federal states (Länder) are responsible for the school-based part, as well as for full-time school-based forms of VET.

The consequences for the resulting options for action for the governance of the education system in Switzerland are exemplified by the entry into force of the Further Education Act (WEBiG) in 2017, an area whose expansion and strengthening in the context of digitalisation is particularly emphasised by all stakeholders. The WeBiG states that the Confederation and the cantons must ‘create the prerequisites that allow all persons to participate in continuing education and training’ (Article 4 b WeBiG). Continuing education and training organisations are required to assume responsibilities such as ‘information and coordination tasks’ (Article 12.1 WeBiG), and public and private sector employers are called upon to ‘promote’ continuing education and training for their staff (Article 5.2 WeBiG).

This collaborative governance, combined with the federal government’s constitutional responsibility for regulation, also facilitates the VPET Strategy 2030, which debates fundamental issues of Swiss VPET, including the structure and organisation. It serves as a platform for monitoring governance mechanisms and makes it possible to work on and discuss a wide range of topics relating to VPET, including the topic of digitalisation. The ‘digitalinform.swiss’² priority area supports projects until 2024. The know-how gained from the projects is to be systematically recorded, analysed and made transferable, and the actors are to be networked with each other. In doing so, the strategy expands the circle of actors beyond the collaborative partners to include academic research, educational institutions and the general public. This is also a distinctive feature of the Swiss system. The participatory approach of involving the public as much as possible in important political processes is reflected here. VPET in Switzerland is an important political area, but also one that affects society as a whole. It is also formally an integral part of the education system, including higher vocational education and training, which in Switzerland is understood as a tertiary and equal partner to academic education, which is also underlined with a corresponding legal clarification (Hippach-Schneider, 2018; Hippach-Schneider and Schneider, 2018).

The strength of a governance model that combines regulatory responsibility for the VET system with governance of the overall education system becomes clear in the framework of the so-called ‘ BFI strategy’ (BFI: education, research, and innovation). Here, VPET is strategically interlinked not only with the other education sectors, such as general and academic education, but also with the areas of research and innovation. The BFI strategy is backed by billions of euros in funding and is implemented in 4-year funding periods. 20% of the public funding comes from the federal government, the rest is financed by the cantons and municipalities. This enables a nationally coordinated view and analysis across the borders of the education sectors. The connections between the education sectors and their interfaces, as well as the links with the areas of research and innovation, facilitate a focused approach to megatrends such as digitalisation and its effects. One example of this is the national research programme ‘Digital Transformation’. Here, interrelationships and concrete effects of the digital transformation on the BFI system are being investigated. One of three modules of the research programme focusses on ‘Education, Learning and Digital transformation’.³

As much as the partners in the network agree in principle on the central importance of partnership in the governance of VPET, and this was also confirmed by almost all of the interviewees, this by no means implies that there is no mutual criticism of partners in the way they perceive their role and shape their relationship with the other partners. This applies to the relationship between the Confederation and the cantons, as well as to the OdA vis-à-vis the Confederation and the cantons. The cooperation in shaping the VPET system is questioned, discussed and reviewed repeatedly and certainly also in relation to the level of political-strategic cooperation. The already delicate structure of the joint bodies and coordination processes at the various levels of governance is also the subject of commissioned research and a question within the framework of the joint strategy for VPET strategy 2030. This structure will be changed if necessary, and an expansion did in fact recently take place in the shape of the establishment of a new governance body at the technical strategic level. Proposals for improvement are being seized upon, and joint implementation is taken (Hippach-Schneider and Rieder, 2021).

In Germany, there are a large number of activities at federal level in the context of VET and digitalisation (Hippach-Schneider and Rieder, 2021; Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), 2017), including a National Skills Strategy with numerous funding programmes and measures that focus on continuing education and training.⁴ These are intended to strengthen VET directly or indirectly, e.g. by promoting SMEs and the trades. The social partners, that is, employers’ associations and trade unions as well as the Federal states, are also involved here.

However, as soon as it comes to schools, that is, also vocational schools as partners of the company learning sites in dual training, the responsibility lies with the Federal states. A ban on cooperation from 2006, the so-called Federalism Reform I, even prohibits the Federation from permanently providing the Federal states with funding for certain education policy measures. At the same time, a provision of the Basic Law that regulated education planning as a joint task of the Federation and the Federal states was repealed. In order for the Federation to be allowed to finance or co-finance the digital equipment of schools, it was therefore necessary to amend the Basic Law, which was passed in 2019 after lengthy discussions between the Federation and the Federal states. Afterwards, the way was clear for the so-called DigitalPakt Schule (Digital Pact for Schools), on the basis of which the federal government was allowed to provide €5 billion in financial support over a period of 5 years.

In 2016, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) published the strategy paper ‘Education Offensive for the Digital Knowledge Society’, formulated modernisation proposals and announced cross-vocational initiatives, such as the expansion of a framework programme ‘Digital Media in Education’. At the same time, however, it was made clear that the federal states would have to develop their own strategy for ‘education in the digital world’ with a focus on the school and higher education sectors (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), 2016). Greinert (2015) views this as a central difference to the Swiss vocational education and training systems and diagnoses a ‘competence schism’ in the German VET system.

Coordination of education policy strategies and activities is not institutionally possible at national level for constitutional reasons. In some cases, a coordinated joint approach between the Federation and the Federal states is possible, for example, in the form of Federation-Federal states agreements or contests⁵ (Deutscher Bundestag - wissenschaftliche Dienste, 2016). These agreements allow the Federal Government and the Federal states to cooperate in the areas of educational planning and research funding mentioned therein. One example is the promotion of the qualification of educational personnel, including teacher training for vocational schools from 2015.⁶ The ‘Alliance for Initial and Continuing Training’ represents a further form of cooperation. In this case, the four main stakeholders for the governance of vocational education and training – the Federal Government, the federal states and the two social partners – have formed a consortium on the basis of an agreement.⁷ The overarching goal of the Alliance is to strengthen vocational education and training. It is an umbrella over numerous initiatives of the partners without a strategic claim. Similar alliances also exist in individual federal states.⁸

Awareness of the problem certainly exists at a federal policy level. There was a reason why the idea of creating a National Education Council was adopted in the Grand Coalition Agreement of 2018 (CDU et al., 2018).The aims were to improve transparency, quality and comparability in the education system, to reach an understanding regarding future objectives and developments, and to foster cooperation between the policy levels involved in structuring education and training provision. The establishment of an Education Council was welcomed by the trade unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB), 2019; Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft (GEW), 2018) and the employer side also believes national coordination of the education sector makes sense (Bundesvereinigung der deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände (BDA), 2018). The cause of the disputes which led to an Education Council being rejected by the States of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg was the upper secondary school leaving certificate. The fear according to Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder is that a central upper secondary school leaving certificate will be imposed ‘from Berlin’ (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2019). His counterpart in Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, considers the body to be ‘as useful as a hole in the head’ (SWR, 2019) and points to the constitutional responsibility of the federal states for educational matters and to the coordinating function performed by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK). At present, attempts are being made to improve cooperation between the Federal states in the field of education policy through a so-called Permanent Academic Commission on the basis of an administrative agreement. The appointment of the 16 commission members has already caused controversy between the Federal states.⁹

This division of responsibility inevitably hampers overarching governance of the education system and would seem to require detailed cooperation and harmonisation between the two stakeholders, the Federal Government on the one side and the 16 federal states on the other. Governance of vocational education and training functions comparatively smoothly thanks to tried-and-tested practices which have been in place for many years in areas such as the development of training regulations to act as a regulatory foundation for dual training. Nevertheless, there are visible difficulties in achieving coordination at the edges of the various education subsectors. Questions regarding areas of responsibility arise as soon as the focus is on the development of hybrid qualifications or on permeability, recognition and credit transfer between general, higher and vocational education.

Areas of conflict between the actors

The areas of action in education policy addressed by the non-governmental actors in Switzerland, in particular the OdA, sectoral and trade associations and trade unions, show a high degree of agreement. The question of whether the VPET ordinances (Bildungsverordnungen, BiVo) are flexible enough in the face of rapid technological development and whether the adaptation process is fast enough are addressed. Other topics are the equipment of vocational schools, digital teaching and learning tools, the appropriate and sensible use of them and the new didactic approaches they make possible. The future role of teaching and training staff is also addressed in this context. The professional development of employees in general and teaching staff in particular also plays a major role in the range of topics. The topics are connected to varying degrees with the question of corresponding funding.

A line of conflict between the employers’ side and the trade unions becomes apparent in the question of support for employees’ continuing education activities. The trade unions demand greater efforts on the part of the companies. The same applies to teaching and training staff. The teachers’ union, for example, explicitly addresses the issue of financing CET. It can be assumed that due to the increasing need for continuing vocational education and training, the different perspectives of the actors will come to a head and the interests of potential participants in continuing education and training will come more into focus.

Somewhat controversial issues are the role and representation of the vocational schools in these processes as well as the role of large companies in Switzerland.

On the one hand, calls are being made for vocational schools and teaching staff to enjoy a greater right of co-determination in future, also with regard to strategic decisions. On the other hand, the advice is that further stakeholders should not be included in governance committees. Nevertheless, there is a clear awareness of the significance of education and training providers, and proposals are being made for the establishment of dialogue forums or expert commissions at the technical operational level. Within the context of the integration of stakeholders into the process of drawing up VET ordinances, the employers are warning that reticence should be exercised in respect of the involvement of more actors. They take the view that too many stakeholders are already taking part and that this is leading to delays in the update process.

The role of the companies is considered from an academic research perspective, and it is proposed that companies particularly oriented to research and innovation should be more closely involved in the development of VET ordinances so that they are able to bring their expertise to bear (Renold et al., 2019). Emmenegger and Seitzl (2019) support the idea that companies should have a stronger voice in the governance of vocational and professional education and training and also suggest that this should be facilitated within the scope of an extra-parliamentary expert commission.

Initiatives undertaken by the employer association Swissmem, creating precisely tailored training pathways or the professional organisation ICT-Berufsbildung, introducing modularisation in their VET ordinances are worthy of note as this represents an instance where a stakeholders is expanding its traditional field of activity and have set out new benchmarks. They believe that this will help to make regulatory instruments flexible. For more on various approaches towards modularisation and flexibilisation, see also Seufert (2018).

In Germany the recommendations and demands particularly relate to the expansion of continuing training, advanced training for teaching staff, the equipment at education and training establishments, digital teaching and learning methods, and new didactic approaches. The issue of future occupational competencies is also addressed. The question posed is whether and the extent to which the set of competencies acquired within VET will need to be changed and adapted. With regard to the structure and organisation of initial vocational education and training, the main points raised concern about the flexibility of training regulations and of the regulatory instruments in overall terms and the role that additional qualifications might play as a possible instrument for flexibilisation. The broad consensus is that the technologically neutral wording of the training regulations generally affords sufficient flexibility and allows everyday training to be adapted to technological changes.

The role that should be played in the training sector by large companies with considerable amounts of resources is also a question which arises in Germany, but from a different perspective. Vehicles such as additional qualifications afford such firms an opportunity to extend the scope which they already enjoy thanks to the technologically neutral wording of the training regulations. In contrast to small companies providing training, they have the capacities to adjust their company-based training more closely to the changing competence requirements and the ability to ensure continuous further training for their staff (for information on the influence of company size on the nature of vocational education and training systems, see Ebner and Nikolai (2010). The innovative approaches which are created may deliver impetuses for the future structuring of training regulations. For the role of the automobile sector, see Zinke et al. (2017).

The role of the vocational schools in the wake of digitalisation is a further issue being addressed in Germany as well. Both in connection with the reform of the BBiG in 2019 and within the context of the debate on a National Education Council in the same year, the teachers’ associations in particular are calling for stronger direct involvement by education staff in educational policy decisions. In Germany, their interests are represented via the school authorities of the federal states, the teachers’ associations and the relevant trade unions. Nevertheless, the role of the vocational schools is viewed as problematic. ‘The vocational schools are on the sidelines in educational policy terms’, opines Rauner (2017), for example. He criticises the fact that the vocational schools are seen as the ‘junior partner’ of dual vocational education and training.

The social partners in the metal working and electrical industries have demonstrated their central role in the development and updating of training regulations in a unique manner. In a departure from the previously established process, they adopted a so-called ‘agile procedure’ to investigate the adaptability of VET contents in the relevant training occupations. However, it became clear in the interviews that there is currently no thought of repeating such an extraordinary initiative on the part of the social partners.

For the first time ever, the legislature has also considered an educational topic within the scope of a committee of enquiry. The Committee of Enquiry on ‘Vocational education and training in the digital world of work’, which was constituted by the Deutsche Bundestag in June 2018, reflects the societal relevance of both vocational education and training and digitalisation.

Although its recommendations are not binding on the executive and are in particular not mandatory for the federal states and the social partners, they are significant in terms of being the official voice of parliament within the scope of public discourse on fundamental policy decisions.

Different standpoints of the social partners can be seen with regard to the strengthening and expansion of continuing vocational training in enterprises. Over the course of the debate surrounding the strengthening and expansion of continuing vocational education and training, it has become apparent that employees need to increase the number of continuing training activities they undertake in order to retain employability. Responsibility for maintenance of employability initially rests with every individual. This means that transparency of the largely unregulated continuing training market and securing the quality of provision have become areas in which action is even more urgently required. This ‘obligation’ to pursue continuing training can only usefully be met if there is a possibility of being able to identify appropriate and quality-assured provision. The trade unions demand to set up a National Continuing Training Council. The urgent need for the continuous participation of learners in further training measures reinforces the question of the representation of the interests of the participants. At present, this role is particularly being assumed by the trade unions. However, the companies also have a vital interest in highly trained staff with contemporary vocational skills and are prepared to make their contribution too. The future division of the financial and time burden remains an object of controversial debate between the social partners.

Discussion

There is a large thematic overlap in the topics that the actors in Switzerland and Germany address in the context of digitalisation. Nevertheless, it becomes clear that the organisation of the legal governance of the system opens up different scope for action. The similarity of the two VET systems due to their cooperative approach is mitigated by this difference. This becomes visible in the context of their policy strategies to cope with the challenges of digitalisation.

Both systems cultivate extremely close cooperation between public stakeholders on the one side and private actors related to the labour market on the other, which makes the systems flexible and adaptable to changes in the labour market. This is the case in both countries even though there are differences between them in terms of the formal organisation of the social partners in the context of VET. For example, Germany has no organisations of the world of work (OdA), in which employers’, professional or sectoral organisations are in fact predominantly present, less so the trade unions (Emmenegger et al., 2020). Overall, trade unions play a smaller role in VET in Switzerland compared to Germany (Emmenegger et al., 2020). This cooperative approach allows the systems to be shaped and implemented by impetuses emerging from practice. It also ensures a high level of flexibility in terms of addressing economic, technological and societal changes and adapting vocational education and training accordingly. The same applies in respect of the challenges being created by digitalisation. However, on the other hand, such a system requires a continuous balancing of the roles of the involved stakeholders. Minor changes in the respective stakeholder structures appear to be sufficient to deal with the challenges of digitalisation. In this respect, both systems can be categorized as self-preserving.

The willingness to question the quality of cooperation between the actors and to involve scientific expertise as well as initiate public debates is certainly more pronounced in Switzerland. The network of actors and legal structures in Switzerland is recognisably reacting more strongly to the pressure for change from digitalisation with intensified cooperation between the actors than the network in Germany. The legal and structural organisation of the governance of the VPET system in Switzerland strongly and explicitly favours cooperation between stakeholders. This has a positive effect in view of the challenges posed by digitalisation. At times when there is a particularly high need for action to strengthen and develop the VET system, an established tradition of cooperative action enhances even closer coordination. The stronger the cooperation already is, the easier and faster it is to intensify it in times of crisis. Cooperation between stakeholders is so important in Switzerland that it is mentioned at the very beginning of the Vocational and Professional Education and Training Act (Art. 1 VPETA): ‘VET is a joint task of the Confederation, the cantons and organisations of the world of work’. It is no coincidence that the idea of cooperation comes first. Such an explicit commitment sets the standard and the way the actors see their roles. There is no equivalent to this in the Vocational Training Act in Germany. It indicates the value of cooperation, which has characterised decades of practice in the design of the VPET system in Switzerland.

At the same time, the legally regulated responsibility of the Confederation for strategic decisions in the VPET system enables a coherent approach in coordination with decisions for the other subsectors of the education system as well as the innovation strategies, despite the strongly corporative nature of the VET system. Together with the pronounced practice of the actors to work together, the constitutional structure of VPET in Switzerland is an almost ideal basis to react quickly and yet consensually to crisis situations.

Within the framework of this close cooperation, however, the actors do not avoid disputes about each other’s roles. For example, the organisations of the world of work clearly criticise the role of the federal government when necessary. This creates dynamics in the constellation of actors and can lead to new approaches and projects within the framework of joint strategies, for example, the Strategy 2030.

The coordination of educational policy measures in Germany requires a higher degree of political good will and coordination effort than is the case in Switzerland, where the idea of thinking about the education system in collective terms is firmly established both institutionally and within society. The division of legal responsibility for shaping the company-based side on the one hand and the school-based side of VET leaves its mark in the form of difficult and controversial legal debates. Also, vocational education and training is not part of a cross-educational innovation and research strategy. However, the pressure of change through digitalisation has led to measures that enable the federal government to co-finance the digital equipment of schools despite the federalism of education, so it has led to a change in the legal situation. Nevertheless, the failure to set up a German National Education Council has also made clear that there are limits to this willingness to cooperate. Especially during times when new cross-cutting education and training provision is emerging and sending out a positive signal of dynamism and adaptability, the reciprocal effect of measures means that coordinated and systemised cooperation by the state stakeholders across education sectors is becoming more urgent.

The non-state stakeholders are each developing their own initiatives within the context of digitalisation. These are being supported, supplemented or even instigated by overarching state-funded education, labour market and economic policy schemes which display a greater or lesser degree of coordination. The involvement of various state and non-state stakeholders creates a structure which is flexible in overall terms. This seems capable of securing the sustainability and attractiveness of VET and may be viewed as a particular strength of both systems.

One of the key questions for the future, however, could be the representation of vocational learners and apprentices.¹⁰ The individualisation of responsibility for remaining employable and coping with changing learning conditions must lead to greater attention to the learner perspective. The question is how this will be organized in the future and who will be the driving force.

One further notable aspect is the commitment of new stakeholders, such as societal groups at a regional or local level. One example here is the Metropolitan Conference of Zurich, which is involving itself within the context of the education and training system in order to optimise the implementation of VPET or to pool interests. New stakeholders or interest groups are also emerging from outside the ‘formal political and administrative apparatus’ (Gonon et al., 2016). These actors are working from within their respective spheres of influence to deliver impetuses for changes to the vocational and professional education and training system.

Limitations

The project sheds light on the differences in the framework conditions for the governance of VET systems in Germany and Switzerland and the consequences for adaptability of the systems. With regard to education policy developments and the recognisable lines of conflict between the actors in connection with digitisation, the project results are a snapshot; further developments remain to be seen. The relatively small number of expert interviews only allows for an interpretative application. A larger number would certainly have been desirable with regard to further assessments and additional perspectives from other members of the stakeholder groups.

Future research directions

Two thematic areas or future research questions in particular emerged in the course of the project.

Within the framework of the project, it became clear that the perspective of apprentices/VET learners with regard to the consequences of digitalisation for them has not yet been systematically investigated in international comparative research. The consequences concern, for example, communication with training staff/school teaching staff as well as learning processes and methods.

The question also emerged, of whether and how the interests and perspectives of apprentices/VET learners are generally communicated with other state and institutional actors. How is the perspective of apprentices/VET learners taken into account in educational strategy and policy decisions? This question is currently being addressed in the follow-up project ‘Communication and reception of the apprentice perspective in international comparison (KuRA)’.

Furthermore, the project gave rise to the question of the role of further stakeholders that have also entered the stage to a particularly high degree within the context of digital development. While these actors are not necessarily new, their level of activity, their strong media presence and their growing educational policy significance through their participation in public-private partnership activities certainly is. They include private sector companies such as consultancy firms as well as foundations. These stakeholders are increasingly addressing topics relating to education and training. One question which arises here is the legitimacy of such bodies which are taking on the role of educational policy stakeholders and the problems associated with such involvement.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author biographies

Ute Hippach-Schneider is senior researcher at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training. She is a member of BIBB’s “International VET Comparison, Research and Monitoring” Section, where she has authored and edited numerous publications. Her specific research interests are governance in VET, role of stakeholders and work-based learning on tertiary education level.

Elena Rieder is student assistent at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training in the section “International VET Comparison, Research and Monitoring”.

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