The British system of youth training: a comparison with Germany

Main points

• Any system of youth vocational training must confront and solve three problems: First, who is to pay for training? Second, how is the content of training to be determined? And third, how is the skill level of a trained individual to be appraised and certificated? We argue that the British system, despite recent reforms, is still far from solving these problems, especially in comparison with the German one. The UK system gives incentives to employers to reduce the general educational content of vocational training. NCVQ is encouraging this trend and is recommending inherently unreliable methods of assessment. Hence the market value of YT certificates is unlikely to be high.