The German Training System and the World of Work: The Transfer Potential of the Lernfeldkonzept

Abstract

The German system of vocational education has been characterised as a ‘high skills society’ with national competitiveness primarily based on high productivity manufacturing a wide range of high-quality goods, relying predominantly on scientific elites and on high-quality intermediate skills. The system of skill formation that serves the ‘high skills society’ generates wide skills distribution and high levels of social trust and produces high incomes and relatively high wage equality (Green 2001, 67-89 and 142f.).