Vocational Preparation and Training in the GDR

Abstract

Recent policies of the Further Education Curriculum Review and Development Unit have done much to encourage fresh thinking and new approaches in relation to vocational preparation and training in Britain but various activities in the colleges, the MSC New Training Initiative and new schemes emanating from the CGLI and RSA, not to mention a variety of proposals from politicians and pressure groups, have not yet resulted in any well developed philosophy, let alone concerted and uniform national action. Yet there is now a reasonably clear recognition that organised vocational preparation and training are essential for a successful industrial democracy. Procedures in various countries have been examined, though not apparently to any great effect. It may, therefore, be useful to look at the approach of one of the more opulent European industrial nations. The German Democratic Republic is the most prosperous nation in the Eastern bloc and in the world's top ten industrial nations, although thirty-seventh in population size and one hundred and second in land size. It has also a highly sophisticated and integrated system of education and training to which it devotes some 6 per cent of its GNP. Over the last ten years public spending on education has doubled to the current level of some 10,000 million marks. Its educational system may be said to be pre-eminent in the Warsaw Pact countries, a fact that seems to be generally acknowledged by its allies — wherever Russian influence is to be found, there the GDR is likely to be involved in the educational sphere. For example, though much is heard about Russia in Afghanistan, nothing is ever said about the fact that the GDR has been there for some time and is likely to be there 'for some years to help develop an Afghan educational system'1. The GDR's Socialist Education System Act of 1965 defines the responsibilities of educationists with respect to the nation and these include the duties to: 1. provide a high standard of education 2. contribute substantially to equipping citizens to master the technological revolution 3. provide a modern general education and a high level of specialised education 4. enable (all people) to perform valuable work as good citizens. That education is the base of national prosperity is acknowledged in the GDR by the privileged position granted to all teachers, that of paying