Termination of Vocational Trainings in the Gardening and Landscaping Sector in Germany

The system of dual vocational education and training in Germany is internationally considered a success model, in the light of the comparatively good labor market development of young adults. However, some problems nonetheless exist in the German training system. This includes the problem of training dropouts. In the case of a premature termination of vocational training, the trainees lose their time, because the transition to another training program or another company is often not possible without frictions. The BIBB transition study in 2011 showed that 14.3 % of all trainings in Germany ended with a change of vocational training or the complete withdrawal from the program. In the first year, 7.8 % of the training contracts were terminated this way. Further results showed that two years after the end of training, only half of the dropouts had entered a new training contract. According to data from the BIBB statistics, gardening and landscaping were above average affected, where in 2014 28.3 % of contracts were prematurely terminated.

Among others, the reasons to withdraw from vocational training were qualifying prerequisites, but also character traits and soft skills such as the lack of self-confidence or the ability to handle conflict. Similarly, difficulty to choose a certain career, led young adults to choose vocational training programs, which did not fit their individual wishes and skills. This in turn could have led to conflicts and lack of support in the workplace or the vocational school. The aim of the study was to provide in-depth information on the withdrawal from training in gardening and landscaping, which can be the basis for targeted action to increase the stability of the training conditions. For this purpose, differentiated statistical information was provided that did not only display the frequency of contract terminations in different areas and at different times, but also the individual conditions that might have caused withdrawal from the respective training program.

Report (in German)

Summary (in German)