People always ask me about Apprenticeships in Germany

Germany provides a model for how apprenticeships can serve the needs of business and industry and solve the youth unemployment problem. There, apprenticeship is viewed as an honored and desirable path, and 80% of participants complete their programs.  As a result, Germany’s youth unemployment is less than the country’s overall unemployment rate (7%).  And the German economy is the EU’s strongest. I would also look to Switzerland as a County with strong vocational pathways. So successful are these programs that many countries have tried to directly import – without success. Why is this?  The challenge is these programs cannot be easily duplicated outside Germany.  In Germany, Apprenticeships are steeped in tradition and there is an accepted culture that holds vocational pathways in high esteem; in fact many apprenticeships fill before other post secondary school options. If you are interested in the topic, I suggest you read ‘Keeping up with the Schmidts”