Zugang zu beruflicher Bildung für Zuwandernde – Chancen und Barrieren

Around one million immigrants, for the most part refugees, arrived in Germany in 2015
alone. More than half of them were aged under 25. Even though numbers have declined
significantly in the last few years, it is to be expected that many of the refugees will remain
in Germany for several years or settle permanently, as the factors that caused them to flee
their countries persist. Facilitating these people’s access to vocational education and training
(VET) and subsequently to the labour market is considered to be an important prerequisite
for integration. Nevertheless, there are multifarious barriers to access to the (initial) VET
system and to employment.
The present authors look at the issue of how access to vocational education and training can
be structured. In addition to the prior learning of immigrants and the general institutional
and legal conditions, they place the emphasis on concepts for (occupational) language support
and on the design of training and training preparation. The contributions from science
and practice are based on discussions held within a forum hosted by the Vocational Education
and Training Research Network (AG BFN).