Virginia Peninsula Community College President Towuanna Porter Brannon was part of a delegation to Stuttgart, Germany when the Hampton Roads Alliance, Hampton Roads Workforce Council, and Virginia Beach Economic Development hosted presidents and officials of universities, community colleges, and technical colleges from Hampton Roads on a visit with educational, business, and political leaders in the area.
The visit took place the week of July 17 with Hampton Roads mayors and business leaders also in the delegation. The group explored Germany’s dual-track vocational education and training (VET) program, a national workforce development pipeline which supports roughly 1.3 million vocational apprentices per year throughout the country and operates as the main vehicle driving talent development within the landscape of Germany’s high-tech industries.
“Germany is impacted by talent shortages, labor force skills gaps, low unemployment rates, and social misperceptions of the career, trades, and technical professions, just like we are in Hampton Roads. But the VET program demonstrates how coordinated and intentional investments from businesses and government can support a post-secondary talent pipeline apprentice system to meet employer demands,” stated Dr. Brannon
The delegation visited corporate headquarters of manufacturers, business development offices, and the campuses of the technical schools and apprenticeship sites associated with the VET program. This included the Gewerbliche Schulen vocational school in Donaueschingen and the Oscar-Walcker-Shul vocational school in Ludwigsburg. Through interviews with technical school students, school administrators, company leaders, and instructors, the academic leaders examined how best practices from this 150-year-old technical education model could be adapted within the Hampton Roads education ecosystem.
One of the key attributes of the VET program is the inclusion of industry partners as investors in the educational model. Not only are the production facilities of manufacturers used as training sites for apprentices, but it is common for German employers to contribute input on curriculum, trainers to oversee the work of apprentices, and training equipment used to teach students on the direct technologies and tools that they will use in the workplace.
Other members of the delegation were President Marcia Conston (Tidewater Community College); President Corey McCray (Paul D. Camp Community College); Executive Vice President Joel A. English (Centura College and Aviation Institute of Maintenance); Campus President Andy Gladstein (ECPI University); and Associate Vice President for Corporate Partnerships Sarah Jane Kirkland (Old Dominion University) conducted a weeklong visit to apprenticeship sites around Baden-Württemberg, the southwestern region of Germany. The educational and business leaders were joined by Hampton Roads mayors Kenneth Alexander (Norfolk), Bobby Dyer (Virginia Beach), Shannon Glover (Portsmouth), Donnie Tuck (Hampton), and Rick West (Chesapeake).
Read more about the experience, including next steps for reimagining career and technical education in Hampton Roads, on the Workforce Council’s website at theworkforcecouncil.org/media-highlights