Sustaining Dual Apprenticeship systems: Similarities and Differences in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland

Based on the German example collective skills formation systems in the form of dual apprenticeship have received much international attention as a potential approach to sustain and develop upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) as an alternative to higher education during recent decades. Austria, Germany, and Switzerland are often considered as paradigmatic cases for such a strategy, pointing to similar structures in these countries. At closer look, these three systems also show substantial differences in sustaining VET at upper secondary level and coping with the repeated crises on the youth labor market. This chapter analyses some key differences between these paradigmatic cases beyond several structural similarities. International comparative data, literature review, and policy analysis are used for this analysis. Some results from the analysis of available comparative indicators show are first that overall education structures in the three countries that do not differ much from European and international averages, second that the expectation of a direct reduction of youth unemployment by apprenticeship is not corroborated by data, third that the employment relation in apprenticeship does not generally induce a higher emphasis on labor market policy to fight youth unemployment, and fourth that two of the three systems under focus show different forms of drift of apprenticeship towards tertiary education. However, the questions which kinds of elements of the apprenticeship systems are generating sustainability, and which mechanisms and practices are in place that effectively might reduce youth unemployment is not clear so far and remain questions for further research.