VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
AND LABOUR MARKET
ISSN 2307-4264 (Print) ISSN 2712-9268 (Online)

Education in vocational education in Germany: the role of the teacher


Educators involved in the implementation of vocational education and training (VET) are key actors ensuring its quality. This article focuses on professional responsibility of educators in the German VET system. More specifically, it concentrates on their task to educate. The explicit and implicit embedment of the educational task of vocational school teachers and company trainers in normative and regulatory framework of dual VET is explored. Further, the article addresses the development of the educational task of VET educators over the time. It is shown that in the course of the last decades, a transformation of VET educators’ roles and tasks as a result of the changing goals of VET took place. Along with these changes, the educational task of VET educators with respect to development of leaners’ personality and their personality-related qualities and virtues has gained importance. Furthermore, in light of the growing influence of globalization and migration processes, promotion of students’ intercultural competence becomes an integral part of their responsibility. Finally, the article shows that in spite of the growing importance of the topic, the empirical research on how role-related normative demands are perceived, adopted and fulfilled by VET educators in praxis remains scarce.