The media bundle “entrepreneurship in apprenticeship training“ makes people develop an appetite for independence in their profession

By order of the Federal Ministry of Economic affairs and labour (BMWA) and the Austrian Economic Chamber (WKÖ), the ibw has compiled the media bundle “entrepreneurship in apprenticeship training”.

The media bundle contains material both for apprentices and trainers. It is supposed to strengthen the idea of entrepreneurship in apprenticeship training and to stir interest in independent enterprise among apprentices.

• www.ausbilder.at/unternehmergeist

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The Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Austrian Economic Chamber awarded Austria’s best training companies for apprentices at the Fit for Future gala on 22 March this year. Amidst 300 guests, the three winners – Cyriak Hochwimmer Carpentry and Planning Office, Eschenhof Hotel, and dm drogerie markt GmbH (a drugstore company)- were proud to receive their Fit for Future awards from State Secretary Christine Marek and Michael P. Walter, WIFI Austria curator and president of the ibw.

• www.ibw.at/fitforfuture

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This summer will see the end of the project DYNOT, which has been financed from funds of the EU program Leonardo da Vinci. It was the aim of the project to develop an advisory tool for the information and communication technology sector which follows the companies’ needs regarding qualification. An evaluation that was carried out not long ago among businesses, career advisors and their customers, showed that their initial expectations were exceeded by far. The tool is now online at www.dynot.net.

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At the turn of the year 2006/07, the ibw took over the coordination of the EU project LaBoom (Languages for the Book and Media Sector) from the Academy of the Austrian Book and Media Industry. LaBoom is a language competence project that builds on a two-step language course. After two years of development, the learning tool will soon be presented to the public.

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The introduction of a credit system in vocational training – better known under the heading EVCET (European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training) - has been a much discussed topic in Europe lately. The pan-European consultation process towards the present working document was completed at the end of March. EVCET is supposed to function quite similarly to the way ECTS does in the field of universities. Competences that have been acquired abroad are transferred by means of a detailed description of the learning results and by attributing points to these.

An important prerequisite for implementing such a system is that similar to the way it is with universities, long-term stays abroad are established (i.e., more than the usual three weeks) and that the competence gained abroad is acknowledged back home.

The Austrian Economic Chamber has thus initiated a project that pursues this very aim: to make qualifying mobility possible. The ibw is co-coordinator of this project and substantially involved in the task to reach these targets.

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The number of businesses that are run by immigrants has become significant in Austria. This ibw newsletter article outlines the basic legal conditions for immigrants that run a business independently. Moreover, the relevant available databases were analyzed with the aid of secondary statistical methods. Thus a picture is drawn of the business independence of people with an immigrant background. The study that forms the basis of this article was carried out on behalf of the AMS (Labour Market Service) Austria.

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Despite significant increase in the employment of university graduates, there has been public “self-defiance” in Austria, concerning the alleged backlog in the percentage of university degree holders. Moreover, there can be heard persistent lamentation concerning job chances of university graduates being slim or getting worse and worse, and the job situation of the freshly graduated being precarious.

The present article tests the implicit questions, first by means of data on the development of employment as well as on the labour market for graduates in Austria. Later, comparative data on university education – where the idea of a “backlog” is deducted from – are analysed for their plausibility.

The author comes to the conclusion that the majority of the differences in the system of tertiary education can be put down to different national qualification strategies. While Austria seeks employability already in vocational middle and secondary schools and in apprenticeship training, the English-speaking countries and the Northern European countries prefer to shift employability training to post-secondary training. As a result, these are grouped among tertiary education due to the present statistical glossary, even though they offer the same contents as upper secondary schooling.

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Cooperation with universities (i.e., federal universities, private universities, specialized colleges, as well as foreign universities offering programs in Austria) has been playing a marginal role in the German speaking countries so far. Five percent of the Austrian companies have cooperated with universities frequently, and another 36% occasionally.

In an ibw study that was supported by the anniversary fund of the Austrian National Bank, both the advantages and hindrances regarding cooperation, fields and forms of cooperation, were assessed. In addition to this, also the situation of offer and demand was analysed.

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The present study carried out by the ibw sheds light on the number of graduates from job maturity examinations, on how many component tests have been taken, and reveals which special subjects have been chosen. Moreover, part of the study was also dedicated to where the graduates actually went to, how many can be found in further education, and finally which experiences they are making in their daily professions.

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