Association training

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Joint training (also training partnership ) is the collaboration between individual companies in training. The companies in the association complement each other in terms of practical vocational training if the training company cannot convey certain training content due to its business processes.

Training partnerships thus represent a special form of learning location cooperation . Learning in training partnerships is assigned advantages for the learners and the companies involved: By promoting professional and social skills and getting to know a wide range of professional tasks, they serve to develop professional mobility and flexibility.

Although the terms cooperation between learning locations and joint training according to the Vocational Training Act come from the context of dual training, they can also be included in the international discussion about learning in networks. On the one hand, this takes place in connection with the increasing networking of work and business processes within and between companies (e.g. supplier networks). On the other hand, it serves for better coordination and networking of publicly provided educational offers (e.g. "learning region").

Classified in this context, training partnerships and cooperation between learning locations represent internationally compatible concepts with a high degree of formalization.

Joint training / training partnerships in Germany

While the concept of joint training represents the legal framework, the concept of training partnership is used in conjunction with specific basic forms and concepts in the field of joint training.

Statutory Regulations

In the current Vocational Training Act (BBiG) of 2005, the establishment of training partnerships was explicitly included. The legal stipulation is intended to emphasize the special status and encourage companies to participate more in training.

Section 10 (5): Joint training

"To fulfill the contractual obligations of the trainers, several natural and legal persons can work together in a training association, provided that the responsibility for the individual training phases and for the training period as a whole is ensured (association training)."

The following excerpt from the BBiG specifies that content that the actual training company does not have in its business processes can also be conveyed externally. A training partnership is therefore legal.

Section 27 Paragraph 2: Suitability of the training facility

"A training facility in which the necessary professional skills, knowledge and abilities cannot be imparted in full is considered suitable if these are imparted through training measures outside the training facility."

Basic forms of training partnerships

In Germany, training partnerships can be divided into four basic forms: the training consortium, contract training, the training association and the lead company with partner companies (ITB, 2006). In addition, there are a number of other mixed forms in practice. In general, unbureaucratic forms of organization that are adapted to regional characteristics are preferred.

Cross-border training is also possible .

Leading company with partner companies

In the lead company model with partner companies, the lead company (parent company) concludes the training contracts. Individual sections that the lead company cannot train due to its business processes are taught in the partner companies. The lead company retains overall responsibility and also bears the costs. A cooperation agreement is concluded for this. The endeavor of the lead company to employ trainees itself and to carry out the training itself as far as possible is a motive for this training association. The partner companies are interested in improving their own training abilities by exchanging experiences and using the premises of the lead company. The partner companies can secure their offspring without the expense of a complete training, because it cannot be ruled out that contacts are made in the partner company during the training that could later lead to employment. In most cases, the lead company trains beyond its own needs. The form of cooperation is a contract between the lead company and the individual partners.

Contract training

In the case of contract training, sections of the vocational training take place outside of the actual training company against reimbursement of costs. Such contracts can be given to other companies or training centers. Training contracts for the trainees are concluded with the parent company, which also pays the remuneration. One motive for this approach is the flexible expansion in order to compensate for operational fluctuations in training capacity. In this way, the main company can train more trainees or junior staff, and the external company or the training center can effectively use existing training capacities. The form of cooperation is the order.

Training consortium

In a training consortium, several small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) come together and each employ trainees who go to the neighboring company on certain content that their own company cannot convey (rotation principle). However, this content can also be adopted by educational centers or educational institutions. The motive behind the training consortium is that the companies work together as equals and train their own trainees independently. The form of cooperation of this network model are mutual cooperation agreements.

Training association

For the purpose of training, the individual companies set up an organization (e.g. e.V.) that takes on the organizational tasks, while the main companies carry out the training. As a rule, the training association concludes the training contracts. The organs of the association are the general assembly and the honorary board, which takes on the management function. A statute regulates the rights and obligations of the members. The costs incurred for management, training remuneration, examination fees, etc. can be raised through membership fees, subsidies (e.g. from the state or the federal government) or donations. One motive is to have a managing director perform the tasks of the association. The form of cooperation is the establishment of an association.

Promotion of joint training in North Rhine-Westphalia

The Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia used funds from the European Social Fund (ESF) to create the opportunity for small and medium-sized companies to receive financial support for joint training in the 2014–2020 funding period . The joint training is seen as a component in the challenge of securing the need for skilled workers. For each training place in the association, 4,500 euros can be paid to the company with which the trainee has concluded the training contract. The prerequisite is that the training company is based in North Rhine-Westphalia, has fewer than 250 employees and the training content that cannot be taught in the actual training company lasts for at least six months. The network partner can not only be another company, but also an educational service provider.

Partnerships as a task of professional educators - establishment, identification and moderation

A training partnership thus forms a regional network of companies, if possible with the vocational school, in order to enable complete and attractive vocational training in a profession or a professional group.

Vocational schools can play an important role in establishing and maintaining training partnerships. The vocational school or the regional competence center can represent the spider in the web within the framework of cooperative vocational training in training partnerships. With this task, professional educators face new challenges.

On the one hand, it is important to identify the need and the right partners for a training partnership, to establish a partnership and to moderate the processes and work in the partnership.

The subject teachers in particular not only know the training companies, but also those companies that can be won over for training.

The establishment of a training partnership can ideally be described in the following stages:

Take the start-up initiative
- Looking for a partner for a training partnership
- Contact the potential partners
Prepare and hold the founding event
- Presentation of the concept
- Comparison of operational interests
- Assessment of company training potential
- Establishing responsibilities
- Establish a working group

First of all, it is important to find companies that can participate in such a cooperation. The preparatory discussions before an official invitation to a founding meeting can take on an important catalyst function with regard to wishes, concerns and obstacles that are brought into such a partnership by the partners involved. This gradually gives the initiator a picture of the problems and perspectives of a training partnership in relation to a profession and the existing companies in a region.

The following illustration from the mentioned toolbox lists some reasons that can be asserted when the initiator acquires partners:

Actor	Possible tasks	Possible benefits
Instructor / Personnel manager; business	Training in own business areas largely in real work processes Exchange of trainees with other companies for non-existent business areas	Own skilled workers Training in own business areas required, exchange possible for other areas, thereby increasing productivity in training Increase in the quality of training through a stronger focus on work processes Training with the respective expert Conveyance of cross-company related knowledge as an important competence for future specialists Better coordination with the vocational school Qualified apprenticeship applicants due to the greater attractiveness of the apprenticeship
Teacher / School management / vocational school	Lessons oriented towards the work processes of the companies joint training projects Coordination of the training partnership	Establishment of a specialist class for a new profession Increased contact with operational practice Closely related to operational innovations Motivated students
Chambers / Guilds	Addressing potential training companies Coordination of the training partnership	Acquisition of additional apprenticeships through attractive framework conditions, especially for small and medium-sized training companies Stable skilled labor markets thanks to an appropriate training quota
Works Council / Youth representation / trade union	Help shape the framework Convincing employees and trainees	Increase in the quality of training Strengthening the representation of interests through additional training jobs Securing proof of skilled workers
employment exchange	Placement of qualified applicants	Sustainable creation of additional training places and thereby a reduction in regional youth unemployment
including M.

(Table taken from pp. 14–15)

It is best if all companies in the catchment area of a vocational school are involved in a training partnership. For companies that cover all training content themselves, it can be worthwhile to take part in a training partnership in order to increase the quality of training.

Instruments for designing training partnerships

The toolbox created by the ITB team offers a lot of practical aids in putting the concept into practice. A particularly important instrument in the implementation is the analysis of company training strengths. Such an analysis can be carried out either by on-site inspections or e.g. B. can also be carried out at the founding event for a training partnership.

Assessment of training strengths
job	Electronics technician for industrial engineering	Date:
company	Richter company
company	12345 A city
Item no.	Parts of the apprenticeship profile	Training content is available
Item no.	Parts of the apprenticeship profile	Completely	partially	not at all
5	Operational and technical communication	X
6th	Planning and organizing the work, evaluating the work results	X
7th	Assembling and connecting electrical equipment		X
8th	Measuring and analyzing electrical functions and systems	X
9	Assessing the safety of electrical systems and equipment		X
10	Installation and configuration of IT systems			X
11	Advising and looking after customers, providing services		X
12	Technical task analysis, solution development	X
13…	...

Structuring:
The job description positions of the applicable regulations should be used as the basis for the assessment. If the vocational positions in the training regulations are not formulated precisely enough, then they can be specified with reference to the training framework plan and the learning fields of the framework curricula of the federal states.

rating scale
- Complete: The training content can be conveyed in the company in the company's own work processes.
- Partly: The training content is not given in the work process, but can be used elsewhere in the company, e.g. B. be taught in the training workshop.
- Not at all: The training content cannot be taught in-house.

(Figure taken from p. 27)

The initiator and moderator can use the summarizing evaluation of the assessments of all partners to get an overview of the training potential within the individual companies and the training potential available in a region with regard to certain professions. This information is important to allow the learners, trainers and teachers to structure the time and content of the training period. The ITB toolbox offers a number of other aids, such as B. concrete proposals of agreements, liability and cooperation agreements

It is very clear that the establishment, identification and moderation of training partnerships is a task that can be very profitable for everyone involved, but also represents a certain amount of effort that must be intelligently distributed between the actors in vocational training. Vocational educators can play an important role here.

In the international research project workplace-learning-partners.org an attempt was made to transfer the instruments and concepts from the German context to examples of learning in networks and company groups. The result is z. B. the instrument of the "Learning Achievement Review" that allows learners and training staff to document and reflect on learning experiences in inter-company networks.

Learning in networks and regional cooperation

In Germany, cooperation between learning locations is particularly evident in the planning and implementation of vocational training. Examples of planning here include: the federal and state commission, the main committee of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), state committees for vocational education. In the implementation of vocational training in the dual system, companies, part-time vocational schools, inter-company vocational training centers and municipalities are obliged to cooperate; this usually only occurs in the areas prescribed by the Vocational Training Act: Vocational training and examination committees and when registering apprenticeships and training advice.

In vocational training, cooperation between learning locations takes place in the core areas of “instruction at the workplace of the training workshop and in vocational lessons”. The connection between theoretical training in vocational school and practical training on the job must be understood by the trainee himself. The most important task of learning location cooperation is to make this easier for the trainee. The trainer and company conference days, which usually take place annually, are not sufficient for this. A demanding cooperation between learning locations becomes apparent when it is based on mutual information about the teaching program, personal strengths and weaknesses of the trainees and coordination of training planning.

Since these requirements are not based on any legal basis, successful cooperation between learning venues can be traced back to individual arrangements by companies, vocational schools and authorities. Examples are large companies that sometimes provide entire vocational school classes. In such a case, the cooperation usually goes in the direction that the company and the school agree on the subject matter to be taught and the vocational school days. Whether one can speak of cooperation or one-sided influence on the part of the company must be decided on a case-by-case basis.

A second example is the creation of inter-company training centers. If individual (mostly small) companies are unable to provide the trainee with training in all sub-areas of their occupation, be it due to outdated equipment or just the lack of coverage in individual areas, the creation of an inter-company training facility is an obvious choice. This covers the missing content in the vocational training. The creation of such a facility is based on the joint arrangement of individual companies. Learning location cooperation should therefore:

Create the connection between theoretical and practical learning. This connection is very important for obtaining professional maturity. This does not mean that the school is responsible for the theoretical part and the company for the practical part. Both institutions can be considered for both forms of learning. This prevents the one-sidedness that arises when the trainee only ever comes into contact with the same tasks in the company.
Cushion the deficits in the vocational training system. The deficits that arise in the vocational training system are to be compensated; here, depending on the region in which one is located, other problems arise.
Cushion the quantitative problems. This means that networks in regions with too few training positions ensure that new training positions - such as B. Full-time school education - to create.
Make vocational training more economical. An example of this is the use of shared resources. The facilities and rooms are used by schools, companies and inter-company facilities. Jointly bearing the costs of development projects.

To evaluate such a network, a certain infrastructure must be created.

Vocational training networks need institutions that are capable of acting in the region. You need to set goals, have financial resources, and be able to make commitments.
Institutional and interdisciplinary communities must emerge which facilitate the development of vocational training networks by creating favorable conditions.
The common knowledge must be available to every network node.
Vocational training plans must be created that cover all learning locations. This means that the previous coexistence of the framework curriculum and training framework plan will be ended and a vocational training plan developed jointly by all parties will form the basis for the skills to be imparted in the training. This vocational training plan is task-oriented. It maps processes as they occur in the company.

Examples from the international environment

England

In England, in contrast to Germany, the question of the place of learning is not the focus of vocational education (Deißinger, 2004, p. 595), since since time immemorial it is mainly the companies that have used the training for themselves and also the state restructuring in the last 20 years due to the Competence approach have only produced a strong focus on learning objectives and thus on output (Deißinger, 2004, p. 589). The vocational training systems must therefore generally be viewed as a pure certification system and thus leave no room for a public discussion of curricular aspects in the school or company area, and therefore also not with regard to cooperation between learning locations. The only exception to this is the modern apprenticeship, which, comparable to the German dual vocational training, brings together theoretical vocational knowledge, practical professional skills and key qualifications and, in addition to the in-company training, includes accompanying school training at the college (Deißinger, 2004, p. 590ff). Despite the still relatively heterogeneous training and the contingent practice of cooperation between learning locations, the modern apprenticeship is the bearer of hope for non-academic vocational training opportunities in England.

Netherlands

Cooperation between learning locations is of great importance in the Netherlands as well as in Germany (Frommberger, p. 622, 2004). However, in line with the original German discussion of cooperation between learning locations, the focus here is on the distribution of the training shares among the individual institutions involved in training (company, inter-company vocational training center, regional training center). Accordingly, the Dutch training partnerships can only be compared with German training partnerships in terms of the form of learning location cooperation that is reduced to school and company. Although in the Netherlands, as in England, vocational training has been based on a nationwide qualifications framework since 1997, there is extensive and variable coordination of the learning locations, as on the one hand 20 percent of a curriculum of the overall training is available to regional and company requirements and on the other hand between a school ( with additional practical components) and a vocational (with additional school components) training variant can be selected (Frommberger, p. 632ff, 2004). So z. B. the commercial training in the north of the country mainly carried out in the school context and in the south mainly by companies. In the second variant, a parent company usually carries out the vocational training, but network models with a different number of companies involved are also used. Overall, aspects of the “old” German duality in vocational training, as well as discussions that have only been held in Germany such as B. differentiate and regionally adaptable curricula.

Denmark

Although the Danish vocational training system, like the German one, is a dual system, training associations in the sense of classic German learning location cooperation are rather insignificant here. The reasons for this are certainly the block form of the training (one school and one company block per training year) and the large spatial distance between school and company due to the regional competence centers (Grollmann, p. 647, 2004). Since the reform of vocational education and training was completed in 2000 and the government has promoted joint training more intensely, there have been very different forms of cooperation between learning locations in Denmark (Grollmann, p. 644ff, 2004). In 1992 an amendment to the Vocational Training Act laid the foundation for in-company training abroad. Further characteristics are the vocational counseling of students generally carried out by vocational schools and the support of companies in questions of training and placement of trainees, the emphasis on the importance of training for regional economic systems as well as various projects such as B. the joint training between school and company with professional learning and work tasks. On the basis of this striving for new forms of cooperation between learning locations, one recognizes, as in Germany, the partial dissatisfaction and the will to make vocational training more flexible.

Cross-border association training

In the case of cross-border joint training (GVA), partner companies in Germany and abroad conclude a contract on joint training and agree on the content for the duration of the stay abroad. One of the challenges here is the diversity of education systems in Europe and job profiles. The added value of skills for trainees and thus also for companies that cannot be acquired during a purely German training is an opportunity. The EU project "GVA / Handwerk" deals with all questions relating to high-quality GVA and its establishment as a natural offer in vocational training (LaWA - Learn and Work Abroad).

European cooperation: The Leonardo da Vinci project "Work & Learning Partners"

The Work & Learning Partners (WLP) project worked from 2004 to 2006 as a pilot project of the EU Leonardo da Vinci program. The WLP project organized country reports, comparative analyzes, regional workshops and European working meetings during this period. At the national level, the project has supported regional pilot measures, surveys and analyzes as well as the production and collection of multimedia products. Overall, the results and conclusions from the project should contribute to a broader European level of knowledge about training partnerships and cooperation between companies and training providers.

From the perspective of the German partners, the WLP Project aims to bring newer German approaches to learning location cooperation, training partnerships and collaborative learning into a European discussion. From a European perspective, the project offers the opportunity to learn from other vocational and further training cultures. In particular, these opportunities exist because the project worked with joint analysis tools, with jointly coordinated pilot strategies and with joint web platforms. The following institutional and organizational configurations can be named as the starting point for work in the project:

The German contribution arose from earlier regional model tests (e.g. GOLO and GAPA) and from their efforts to develop dual-collaborative learning contexts within the framework of a regional learning network. Concerning the European dialogue, the interest lies in how the approaches developed here can be implemented in other training and qualification models.
The contribution of the partners from the United Kingdom (England and Wales) relates to joint measures in which partner companies from networked supply chains support joint quality development with the help of work analyzes and educational offers. An important interest of the partners in this context was to bring web-based portfolios and collaborative learning aids (“Personal Learning Environments”) into the discussion.
The Italian contribution relates to the initiation and supervision of an industrial learning community with a focus on work-related or organizational learning. With regard to the European dialogue, the interest lay in gaining suggestions and tools for regional implementation from European cooperation.
The Slovenian contribution refers to the expansion and deepening of the regional cooperation relationships of a school-based vocational training center (SCV). With regard to the European dialogue, the interest lay in using suggestions and tools from European cooperation as support for local initiatives.
The French contribution refers to different examples of company cooperation with vocational and further training institutions. A special interest lay in the importance of the Euregio reference framework for regional and transnational cooperation initiatives.
The Estonian contribution relates to analyzes of the conditions for regional cooperation between companies and vocational training institutions in an industrial region that is considered to be a conurbation for Estonian mechatronics industries. With regard to the European dialogue, the interest was in studying the transferability of approaches from a European environment.

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Bauer, W., & Howe, F. (2004). Cross-learning vocational training plans for dual-cooperative vocational training. In D. Euler (Ed.), Handbuch der Lernortkooperation (Vol. 1, pp. 383–399). Bielefeld: Bertelsmann.
^ Federal and State Commission for Educational Planning and Research Funding. (2003). Further development of vocational schools. Further development of vocational schools as partners in regional vocational training networks. BLK report. Bonn.
↑ Deissinger, T. (2004). Learning location cooperation from an international perspective - England. In D. Euler (Ed.), Handbuch der Lernortkooperation (Vol. 1, pp. 580–600). Bielefeld: Bertelsmann.
↑ Deitmer, L., Attwell, G., & Nyhan, B. (1999). Towards the Learning Region. Thessaloniki: Office for official publications of the European Communities.
↑ Frommberger, D., & Reinisch, H. (2004). Learning location cooperation from an international perspective - Netherlands. In D. Euler (Ed.), Handbuch der Lernortkooperation (Vol. 1, pp. 622–638). Bielefeld: Bertelsmann.
↑ Grollmann, P., Gotlieb, S., & Kurz, S. (2004). Learning location cooperation from an international perspective - Denmark. In D. Euler (Ed.), Handbuch der Lernortkooperation (Vol. 1, pp. 639–654). Bielefeld: Bertelsmann.
^ Rauner, F. (2002). Training partnerships as a standard model for the organization of dual vocational training. In J.-P. Pahl (Ed.), Training in Transition: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.
^ Schmidt, H. (2004). Cooperation in Vocational Training - a German Specific? In D. Euler (Ed.), Handbuch Lernortkooperation (Vol. 1). Bielefeld: WBV.
↑ Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs NRW: Training in association - opportunity for companies and trainees. Retrieved September 17, 2018 .
^ Regional agency Hellweg-Hochsauerland: Network training in North Rhine-Westphalia: Training in the network in response to the need for skilled workers. Retrieved September 17, 2018 .
^ ^A ^b ^c Meyer, K., Howe, F., Mächtle, Th., Mizdalski, R., Rauner, F .: Training in training partnerships Increase training quality - reduce training costs - create training positions, Konstanz Christiani Verlag 2006

[1] Bauer, W., & Howe, F. (2004). Cross-learning vocational training plans for dual-cooperative vocational training. In D. Euler (Ed.), Handbuch der Lernortkooperation (Vol. 1, pp. 383–399). Bielefeld: Bertelsmann.

[2] Federal and State Commission for Educational Planning and Research Funding. (2003). Further development of vocational schools. Further development of vocational schools as partners in regional vocational training networks. BLK report. Bonn.

[3] Deissinger, T. (2004). Learning location cooperation from an international perspective - England. In D. Euler (Ed.), Handbuch der Lernortkooperation (Vol. 1, pp. 580–600). Bielefeld: Bertelsmann.

[4] Deitmer, L., Attwell, G., & Nyhan, B. (1999). Towards the Learning Region. Thessaloniki: Office for official publications of the European Communities.

[5] Frommberger, D., & Reinisch, H. (2004). Learning location cooperation from an international perspective - Netherlands. In D. Euler (Ed.), Handbuch der Lernortkooperation (Vol. 1, pp. 622–638). Bielefeld: Bertelsmann.

[6] Grollmann, P., Gotlieb, S., & Kurz, S. (2004). Learning location cooperation from an international perspective - Denmark. In D. Euler (Ed.), Handbuch der Lernortkooperation (Vol. 1, pp. 639–654). Bielefeld: Bertelsmann.

[7] Rauner, F. (2002). Training partnerships as a standard model for the organization of dual vocational training. In J.-P. Pahl (Ed.), Training in Transition: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.

[8] Schmidt, H. (2004). Cooperation in Vocational Training - a German Specific? In D. Euler (Ed.), Handbuch Lernortkooperation (Vol. 1). Bielefeld: WBV.

[9] Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs NRW: Training in association - opportunity for companies and trainees. Retrieved September 17, 2018 .

[10] Regional agency Hellweg-Hochsauerland: Network training in North Rhine-Westphalia: Training in the network in response to the need for skilled workers. Retrieved September 17, 2018 .

[MHMMR-11] A ^b ^c Meyer, K., Howe, F., Mächtle, Th., Mizdalski, R., Rauner, F .: Training in training partnerships Increase training quality - reduce training costs - create training positions, Konstanz Christiani Verlag 2006