2025

There were no reforms in the area of  vocational education and training and adult learning during the reporting period.

2024

Vocational Training Validation and Digitalisation Act 

The Vocational Training Validation and Digitisation Act (Berufsbildungsvalidierungs- und -digitalisierungsgesetz – BVaDiG) came into force on 1 August 2024. With the newly introduced assessment procedure, people without a formal vocational qualification but with professional experience have been entitled, for the first time, to have their professional skills assessed and certified against the standard of a dual training occupation since 1 January 2025.

The assessment procedure is aimed at people over the age of 25. If the assessment procedure is successfully completed, a certificate of full comparability is issued, which opens up access to further training and trainer aptitude.

In addition, the BVaDiG consistently enables digital documents and digital (administrative) processes in vocational education and training that are free of media discontinuity.

2023

Citizen's Income Act

With the Citizens‘ Income Act (Bürgergeld-Gesetz), the further training opportunities for the unemployed and for employees receiving citizens’ income were strengthened as of 21 July 2023. The aim is to enable the low-skilled to find sustainable employment through training, retraining or further education, for a life without additional state benefits. On the one hand, financial incentives to participate in further training have been expanded: the further training grant for successful intermediate and final examinations in the case of qualification-oriented further training has been made permanent and an additional monthly further training allowance of 150 euros has been introduced. On the other hand, access to funding opportunities has been simplified so that more people can benefit from them. To this end, the possibility of funding full retraining courses and access to funded acquisition of basic skills (e.g. reading, mathematics, IT) has been made more flexible.

Unemployment insurance cover during continuing vocational training has been improved by a longer minimum residual entitlement period after the end of the training. The measure “Participation in the labour market“ under Section 16i of the German Social Security Code II, through which people who are particularly distant from the labour market can find employment subject to social security contributions and receive further training, was made permanent and holistic support (coaching under Section 16k of the German Social Security Code II) was introduced as a new regulatory instrument. It can also be provided on an outreach basis, alongside training or employment.

Act to strengthen the promotion of training and further education

The Act to Strengthen the Promotion of Training and Continuing Education (Gesetz zur Stärkung der Aus- und Weiterbildungsförderung), which was passed in the summer of 2023, further developed the labour market policy funding instruments for those seeking training and those already in employment, and added new funding options. A training guarantee was introduced to give all young people without vocational qualifications access to vocational training that leads to full qualification, preferably in a company. The training guarantee uses a variety of approaches: It strengthens vocational orientation and supports regional mobility. And if all efforts to find a company-based training place are unsuccessful, it enables extra-company training in the regions where there are too few training places. This broad approach is designed to compensate for existing regional and vocational disparities as far as possible and thus avoid so-called fit problems becoming entrenched in the training market. In addition, the law opened up financial support for further training to all companies and their employees and increased it for small and medium-sized companies in particular. The introduction of a qualification allowance has expanded support for employees. Since 1 April 2024, the qualification allowance can be claimed for employees whose jobs are threatened by structural change but who can be given future-proof employment in the same company through further training.