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Vocational Qualifications of the Labour Force in Britain and Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

S.J. Prais
S.J. Prais*
Affiliation:
National Institute of Economic and Social Research
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Extract

‘All the world has much to learn from German methods of education’, said Alfred Marshall some sixty years ago; as many others have also recognised, this is particularly true of vocational education. Until very recently however it has not been possible to make any comprehensive comparisons of the labour force—to assess the proportions of workers in various industries who have qualified at specified levels, and the proportions who have remained unqualified. Statistical comparisons of qualifications of the labour force hitherto have generally been confined to the narrow stratum of those in the uppermost educational echelons (those with university degrees or their equivalent); where more basic skills have been considered, comparisons have been limited to enrolments for selected broad groups of vocational courses. Very little has been available on the stock who have reached tested levels of proficiency.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 98 , November 1981 , pp. 47 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

∗

This Note has been prepared as part of the research programme of the Designated Research Centre in Comparative Industrial Structure and Efficiency sponsored by the SSRC at the NIESR. I am grateful to my colleagues, especially Anne Daly (National Institute) and Karin Wagner (International Institute of Management, Berlin), for advice and assistance; and to the Social Survey Division of the UK Office of Population Censuses and Surveys and the German Federal Statistical Office for supplying the main statistical tabulations, and patiently answering our questions on them. Unless otherwise indicated, the term ‘Britain’ is here used for Great Britain (i.e. excluding Northern Ireland), and ‘Germany’ for the Federal Republic of Germany.

References

(1) Industry and Trade (1st edn., 1919; 4th edn., Macmillan: London, 1923, p. 130).

(2) A duplicated technical appendix to this article gives further details of these surveys, explains how this table was compiled (using the General Household Survey for Britain— mainly because of its insistence on direct interviewing for qualifications), and discusses related sources of information. (Copies may be obtained by writing to the Secretary, DRC, NIESR, 2 Dean Trench Street, London SW1P 3HE).

(3) For readers not familiar with the British school examination system, it may briefly be said that the General Certificate of Examination (GCE) is taken by those in upper educational streams (Grammar schools and the like) and is taken at two levels: Ordinary (‘O’) level at about the age of 16, and Advanced (‘A’) level at about 18. The Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) is usually taken at Comprehensive schools at about the age of 16. Both groups of examinations may be taken in individual subjects. There is no requirement to pass a number of subjects at the same sitting, nor is any special certificate issued for doing so. The Department of Education however publishes the number of candidates passing O-level in at least five subjects at a satisfactory level (‘A, B or C awards’, or their equivalent), which corresponds broadly to what in previous years was known as ‘matriculation standard’.

(4) The Higher National Diploma (see p. 52 below for further details).

(1) A degree is still not a strict requirement, but it has become increasingly difficult to obtain approved training and articles with a solicitor in any other way; over 95 per cent of new entrants to the profession had degrees in 1980. It appears that higher minimum wages for articled clerks meant that solicitors were not prepared to offer training vacancies to those entirely untrained; more were thus encouraged to take degrees: a greater proportion of the cost of training thus fell on the taxpayer.

(2) About 45 per cent in 1971 compared with 38 per cent in 1961, according to the definitions used in the Census of Population. See Persons with Qualifications in Engineering, Technology and Science, Census 1971 (HMSO, 1976), p. 89; and Scientific and Technological Qualifications (HMSO, 1961), p. 11.

(3) See the figures from 1966 onwards from the Surveys of Professional Engineers conducted by the Council of the Engineering Institutions (quoted by G. Catto, A. Goodchild, P. Hughes, Higher Education and the Employment of Graduates, Department of Employment Research Paper no. 19, 1981, p. 74). These surveys are voluntary with low response-rates, and it seems possible that there has been a ‘response bias’ in favour of those with degrees (for example, it is curious that the survey of 1966 showed 30 per cent of those aged 35-39 as graduates, while the survey of 1975 showed 44 per cent of those in much the same cohort—namely, those then aged 45-49—to be graduates). A better postal survey of pro fessional engineers (with a 75 per cent response-rate) conducted in 1978 for the Finniston inquiry showed that 75 per cent of those aged 25-29 were graduates; and of those aged 20-24 who were already in practice perhaps up to 90 per cent would have a degree, or be on a ‘sandwich’ course leading to a degree (R. Berthoud and D. J. Smith, The Education Training and Careers of Professional Engineers, HMSO, 1980, pp. 7, 112).

(1) however, in any more precise examination it would be necessary to keep in mind that many in Britain believe that its system of training engineers is unduly lacking on the practical side. See, for example, an article by A. W. J. Chisholm (Professor of engineering at the University of Salford), ‘Some comparisons of the engineering education and training systems of Britain and continental Europe’, in Training and Career Development for Engineers (The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, 1976), pp. 61-2. The Finniston report accepted that ‘Students thus typically reach the graduation stage with a knowledge of engineering science and of analytical tools but they usually have little experience and skill in their application to engineering tasks as they occur in practice; they are also often without an understanding of the constraints under which engineering work is conducted in practice’. (Engineering Our Future, Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Engineering Profession, Cmnd. 7794, HMSO, 1980, p. 84; see also p. 184, and p. 41 on the contrast with other countries.) At present the British Chartered Engineer, a qualification which requires some years of responsible experience as well as paper qualifications, is accepted as an equivalent to the German Dipl.Ing.; no further progress has been made in harmonising EEC qualifications (see Finniston report, p. 235), though discussions are still in progress.

(2) wallowing for a 12 per cent larger total German labour force (as shown in the Censuses compared in this table) reduces the relative deficiency in Britain, but only slightly- to 36 per cent (and for graduates to 71 per cent).

(3) The requisite detail is not available from the surveys used for table 1 because of their limited size of samples; it has therefore been necessary to rely on the preceding censuses (for Britain, the educational details come from the fuller questionnaire that applied to a 10 per cent sample of the census).

(4) The German excess of ‘arts’ degrees is more than accounted for by their 46,000 theologically-qualified persons compared with 11,000 in Britain. In Britain aspiring ministers of religion more often attend a theological college after taking a degree in some other main subject at a university.

(5) For an introduction see chapter 4 of Productivity and Industrial Structure by S. J. Prais, A. Daly, D. T. Jones and K. Wagner (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming December 1981).

(1) The proportion failing varies a little by subject, being lowest amongst those in the civil service (5 per cent failures— no doubt due to higher entry requirements) and highest in Handwerk occupations (18 per cent failures); there also appear to be differences amongst the Länder which suggest imperfect coordination (Berlin has 19 per cent of failures, Baden- Württemburg has 6 per cent; the statistics relate to 1977 and are taken from Berufliche Bildung 1977, Bildung und Kultur 11/3, p. 15). These variations may be due as much to differences in selection processes as in final standards achieved; see next paragraph.

(2) Allgemeines Schulwesen: 1979 (German Federal Stat istical Office, Bildung und Kultur, Series 11/1, p. 24); the same percentage applies to those leaving Hauptschule, while four fifths of those from special schools do not attain that standard.

(3) It should be noted that the high rate of absenteeism from obligatory part-time vocational schooling, reported to reach 30 per cent in some areas, relates to these general courses for the unskilled. The German plans for reducing further their already low proportion without vocational training should thus be understood as referring primarily to providing better incentives and better facilities to enable these ‘failures’ to benefit from some form of generalised vocational preparation.

(4) The proportion of those leaving part-time Berufsschule who have not completed their course is published only for Bavaria and the Rhineland, where it was 15 and 19 per cent respectively in 1970 (Berufliches Schulwesen: 1976, German Federal Statistical Office, Bildung und Kultur, Series 11/2, p. 22); this corresponds to about 8 per cent of the age-group.

(1) See the Appendix for further details.

(2) In some less-skilled occupations two years part-time are adequate. The available statistics from the Microzensus on the population stock do not distinguish those who have qualified on a two-year part-time course (the Angelernte, as they were known in earlier decades) from those who have qualified on the basis of longer courses (those with a Lehrberuf), though such a distinction would be of much interest; more detailed information of this type is available in relation to the current output of qualifications which is considered below (pp54 and 56).

(3) Realschulen, Handelsschulen (commercial schools), or Mittelschulen (the last are ‘middle’ schools, not because of age- criteria, but because of their intellectual requirements).

(4) The City and Guilds of London Institute (C and G for short) is Britain's largest organisation concerned with vocational testing; it is particularly strong in manufacturing covers an increasing number of service trades, but does not by any means include all branches of economic activity (for example, secretarial work, medical assistants, legal assistants, and most of distribution are excluded).

(1) The mechanical fitters courses compared were, for Britain, C and G Part I engineering craft studies (examinations 200-1-01/03) and Part II mechanical engineering examination 205-2-11/12); and for Germany, the courses for Maschinen schlosser (2730, intermediate and final examinations, as set in Berlin). The electrical courses compared were the C and G course 235 (examinations 235-1-02/2 and 235-2-11/12); and the examinations as set in Stuttgart for Electroberufe at intermediate level, and for Electroanlageninstallateur at final level (corresponding to course number 3110). Examination papers for 1980 were exchanged between corresponding teaching institutions in the two countries, and comments were received from teachers and examiners. It is hoped to give a fuller account of these comparisons, together with those for further subjects that we propose undertaking, in a subsequent paper. I should like at this stage to thank those who have assisted in these comparisons at the City and Guilds Institute, at the Engineering Technology Department of Paddington College in London, and at the engineering examination department of the Industrie und Handelskammer in Berlin. Comparisons of this kind have no doubt been undertaken informally previously, but no one that I spoke to was able to refer me to any results. The present com parisons are of course limited and are by no means intended to be definitive—such an inquiry would be beyond our resources—but it was thought necessary to undertake at least some specimen comparisons to ensure that like was being compared with like, and at least in broad terms. More detailed comparisons are planned at the EEC Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) in Berlin, and the results of their more definitive comparisons will be awaited with interest (a start has been made there on comparing qualifications for electrical technicians).

(2) These comparisons for Germany include Ingenieurschulen in both years (the official statistics on higher education include this category only since 1972).

(3) Thus, for 1976-7 German statistics showed 880,000 registered students. British statistics for that year showed 280,000 undergraduate and postgraduate university students, plus 90,000 almost entirely on 3-4 year teacher-training courses for non-graduates, and 40,000 attending full-time at polytechnics on courses leading to degrees of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA); this gives a total of 410,000. If the latter total is increased by a third, to allow for an extra year of training in Germany, and by a further tenth for the population difference, it will be seen that Germany's relative excess is as stated above. Students in further education have been excluded from these comparisons (about 60,000 in Britain attend full-time, apart from those just mentioned on full-time CNAA courses, and those on teacher training courses: see Education Statistics for the United Kingdom 1976 and 1977, p. 30; and Further Education 1976, p. 41), on the ground that these are closer to the German Berufsfachschulen and Fachschulen which lead to ‘intermediate’ qualifications.

(4) Statistics of enrolment by year (or semester) of course are available for both countries but provide only limited guidance on wastage. A comparison of successive sets of these statistics, in an attempt to trace cohorts of students through their courses, appears to suggest a higher drop-out rate for Germany—15 per cent in the first year for Germany compared with some 8 per cent in Britain: but since in the British statistics a student repeating, for example, the first year of his course during the second year of his attendance is treated as a first-year student, no precise conclusion can be drawn (the German statistics, in contrast, relate to the number of semesters for which the student has been enrolled on his course).

(5) The discrepancy rises to some 43 per cent if allowance is also made for the 21 per cent of foreign students in engineering and technology at British universities (Statistics of Education, vol. 6, Universities, 1976, p. ix, for 1976-7; no figures for degrees awarded—as distinct from students—are published in Britain by students' country of origin), compared with 7 per cent of engineering degrees awarded to foreign students in Germany. The statistics on the number of engineering graduates in table 3 are more comparable than those I gave in an earlier comment (in Industrial Policy and Innovation, ed. C. Carter; Heineman, London, 1981, p. 32); the differences are that the present figures (a) include for Britain estimates of Open University graduates, (b) exclude architecture from both countries; and (c) exclude doctoral degrees from both countries.

(1) The 5 per cent average cut in the number of students in 1980-4 announced by the University Grants Committee in July 1981 discriminated slightly more against arts and social studies (a proposed loss of 11,000 students) than against science and technology (a loss of 2,000); but the number of students in engineering was to be increased slightly (cf. the letter to The Times from the Chairman of the UGC, 14 October, 1981. Even so, the heaviest proportionate cuts were applied to the newer technological universities—Aston (22 per cent), Salford (30 per cent), Bradford (19 per cent)—for the graduates of which there is an above average demand by industry (cf. Michael Dixon, The Financial Times, 9 July, 1981).

(2) The German source (for reference, see table 4) shows 470,000 passing final vocational examination at the Berufsschule level, compared with the above total of 407,000; the difference arises because we have here excluded two-year courses corresponding (under the current system) to the first stage of a potentially longer course (Stufenausbildung), and included those who pass only the first stage with the semi- skilled grades (considered below, p. 56).

(3) In an attempt not to understate the achievements of the British training system, we have included in table 4 those passing Part II of both craft and technician courses (the latter courses normally last a year longer include a Part III examination, but the level reached at Part II is roughly equivalent on the two types of courses; many employed as craftsmen have taken technician courses). Of the 62,000 passes shown in table 4, some 15,000 relate to technician courses; if the latter are omitted from the comparison with Germany, the German advantage in the output of qualified craftsmen rises to 3:1.

(1) Each ‘module’ provides a graded set of tasks in a particular branch of engineering craftsmanship.

(2) 10,300 out of the 17,000 who commenced module training in 1975-6; see EITB, Annual Report and Account 1980-81, p. 69. An additional 1,600 had completed one module by 1981; on the basis of previous experience perhaps a third of these might be expected to complete a second module in due course.

(3) At the City and Guilds craft-level there were 17,000 Part II passes in metal and mechanical engineering and maintenance courses, and 16,000 in electrical and electronic craft and installation work; the fraction covered by the training board is thus of the order of a third. As a result of a division of responsibility when the training boards were established, it was decided that the latter should provide practical training, and C and G should provide the theoretical foundations and background; the division has unfortunately been so thorough that no one in Britain knows how many have satisfied both requirements. Indeed, no awarded qualification hinges on any such joint requirement. As noted above (p. 52), this contrasts fundamentally with Germany, where no final pass is awarded unless both the theoretical and practical work of the candidate has been tested and found satisfactory.

(4) It is to be regretted that none of the official bodies in Britain concerned with training has yet put together statistics of numbers of trainees reaching specified levels of competence; the MSC's review of the consequences of recent training legislation (Outlook on Training, 1980, p. 57) was not able to go beyond listing names of several dozen organisations with which they were engaged in ‘dialogues’. The following few figures may assist in indicating orders of magnitude, though the scope and level of the qualifications mentioned requires further investigation. In distribution, the Germans pass 50,000 per annum after a three-year part-time course; 17,000 pass in banking and insurance; in office work, 60,000 pass tests mainly at the end of a three-year part-time course. In Britain, those passing board secretarial examinations (the ‘group certificate’ certifying competence in a number of subjects such as book-keeping, commerce, and shorthand at 100 words a minute) seem to total only 4,000 a year; the main tests are set by The London Chamber of Commerce (3,030 passed their Private Secretary's Certificate in 1980), the Royal Society of Arts (about 500 passed their Stage II group secretarial studies and 400 their Diploma for Personal Assistants) and the Pitman Examinations Institute (about 100 Secretarial Group Certificates). 11,000 passed at the level of Ordinary National Certificate or Diploma in business studies, and about 6,000 at the Higher National level. (A useful introductory account of the various institutions providing secretarial training in Germany is given by D and G. Sharp, The Secretary in Europe, Pitman, 1975, pp. 56-71.)

(1) The above paragraphs have picked out only the main features of what in reality is a much more complex structure; fuller details for Germany can be found in the statistical publication Berufliches Schulwesen (note especially table 1.4 on those leaving vocational schools). The taking of succes sive levels of qualification is particularly common at the technician level; a more accurate comparison would have to take this into account, and would require sample investigations of cohort histories in both countries or similar information. In respect of Britain the above account has, for the sake of simplicity, not mentioned the re-organisation of training under the Technician Education Council and the Business Education Council; this is only now coming into effect, and has so far amounted more to a change in nomenclature than of quantitative substance.

(1) The factories were chosen so that one in each country came from the three production types distinguished by the late Joan Woodward: continuous, process production (for which chemical plants producing polyethylene, etc, were chosen), mass production (steel tubes), and unit production (pressure vessels, such as boilers). See A. Sorge and M. Warner, ‘Manpower training, manufacturing organisation and workplace relations in Great Britain and West Germany’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 1980, p. 318; and, together with a comparison with France: M. Maurice, A. Sorge and M. Warner, ‘Societal differences in organising manufacturing units: a comparison of France, West Germany and Great Britain’, Organization Studies, 1980, p. 63.

(2) Sorge and Warner, p. 323.

(3) Ibid, p.329.

(4) Similarly there is a shortage in Britain at the next higher level, that of technician; the Council of the Engineering Institutions spoke of ‘a massive imbalance of training provisions leading to large numbers of graduates doing technicians’ work' (in its evidence to the Finniston Committee, see Report, p.189).

(5) The detailed results will appear in a study to be published in 1982. I am grateful to the authors for permitting me to use their advance results here.

(1) In calculating the correlations quoted in this paper each observation was weighted in proportion to the size of the industry as represented by its employment in Britain (an average of British and German employment might seem better—but would hardly yield different results in view of the similarity of industrial structures, as is apparent from the first column of table 1). It was necessary to group some of the industries more broadly here than in table 1 in order to match with the industrial classification used in the productivity study.

(2) The coefficients of variation are 14 and 25 per cent respectively.

(3) See A. Daly and D. T. Jones, ‘The machine tool industry in Britain, Germany and the United States’, National Institute Economic Review, May 1980, especially p. 57.

(4) Earlier studies of the skill-content of the labour force were often based—for lack of other data—on occupational returns to the Census of Population, showing the numbers describing themselves as working, for example, as ‘engineers’ or ‘technical personnel’. From the point of productivity differences it is however obviously important to know whether these soi-disant engineers, etc. are qualified or not. For example, in what at first sight seems to contrast strangely with the present results, an earlier study based on occupational data showed Britain as having a higher percentage of its labour force engaged as ‘professional, technical, managerial, adminis trative and clerical workers’ than Germany (21 compared with 17 per cent, taking an average of 17 industries in 1960-61 as summarised by D. B. Keesing, ‘Different countries’ labour skill coefficients and the skill intensity of international trade flows', in Journal of International Economics, 1971, p. 446; these data were taken from a remarkably extensive international compilation of occupations by industry, prepared by M. A. Horowitz, M. Zymelman and I. L. Herstadt, Manpower Requirements for Planning: An International Comparisons Approach, 3 vols. Boston : North-Eastern University, Depart ment of Economics, 1966. A new version was published in 1980 by The World Bank's Education Department: M. Zymelman Occupational Structures of Industries).

Britain's employment of a higher proportion of ancillary, ‘non-production’, personnel in Britain is of course not inconsistent with fewer of them being qualified, as indicated by the statistics in this Note; the small sample of ‘case studies’, referred to above, by Sorge and Warner (op. cit. p. 330) led to similar conclusions. It might sourly be said in relation to much of British manufacturing that it has discovered an infallible recipe for low productivity-to employ many supervisory personnel and to ensure they are unqualified: but that perhaps goes a little further than is strictly implied by the data available so far.

(1) Cf. the quotations by G. Williams, Apprenticeship in Europe: The Lesson for Britain (London, Chapman and Hall, 1963), p. 178.