Oops! We've done it again!
We are training! Averted the academic drift?
5 young people are starting their dual training programme at the M&D Group this year. A good decision. All training places for 2022 have therefore been filled again from this training year. We even decided to fill an additional apprenticeship position at short notice and seize the opportunity. Our training quota is now 15.7%. We are very proud and satisfied!
But can we use this as proof that we can avert academic drift? Not at all!
A nice snapshot, but nothing more!
We are certainly an attractive and efficient training company for young people and obviously differentiate ourselves from others in key aspects from the trainees' point of view, but this alone will not be enough to secure the future of our company.
Our clear commitment to dual vocational training is not just a statement of our acceptance of an existential socio-political task and responsibility. It is also an expression of our deepest conviction that dual training must remain a supporting pillar to ensure the urgently needed value creation not only in the skilled trades but also in industry.
But that is not enough! In the same way, the will of politicians, whether at federal, state or municipal level, to strengthen dual training and to do everything possible to achieve this, needs to be realised.
At the latest when it hits the administrative level, it loses its political will and momentum, because the laws and framework conditions for implementation are usually simply lacking.
From this year onwards, our light aircraft mechanics will have to travel across the country to Donauwörth in the south for their theoretical training because the vocational training centre in the north, which has been used successfully for decades, no longer permits joint training with aircraft mechanics.
Unlike in other federal states, the full costs of theoretical training are not covered in the federal state of Lower Saxony. As a company, we are now the service provider instead! For almost two years, a corresponding motion for the full assumption of costs from the FDP parliamentary group has been ping-ponging between the committee and parliament. It has not even made it to the administrative level yet.
In order to strengthen dual training and maintain vocational school locations as desired and as can be read in almost all election programmes, a new way of thinking and the ability to respond spontaneously and individually with solutions on site is absolutely necessary. It is the self-imposed framework conditions that simply prevent new, pragmatic and viable solutions.
The quality of training in the company on the one hand and in vocational schools on the other does not suffer as a result of the fact that a small proportion of the framework curriculum cannot be taught or can only be taught with great difficulty. Ultimately, we train skills, we promote creativity, the ability to transfer and, above all, to think in terms of solutions.
What is needed here is the flexibility to think in guard rails and not in narrow lanes. This new way of thinking would also help to maintain vocational school locations and increase the attractiveness of individual professions.
As M&D, we would also like to train painters in addition to light aircraft builders, warehouse and logistics specialists and industrial clerks. Anyone who is able to master the technology of surface preparation and painting of gliders will later be able to fulfil the tasks of a painter in other places with different process technology.
We cannot imagine today how long it will take to implement this new way of thinking in dual vocational training.
Dear politicians, don't just express your political will in a mantra-like manner, but ensure the ability to act and the possibility for change and new thinking at the administrative levels.
