The Austrian Model

A wide choice of different paths to Vocational Education and Training (VET) is a key factor of success and explains why Austria has one of the highest proportions of upper secondary students in VET among OECD countries. Up to 75% of any age group choose VET after finishing mandatory schooling.

Acquiring skills needed in the labor market is crucial to ensure economic opportunity and jobs for the young. High quality VET makes the labor markets work smoothly and helps to pursue future opportunities. The Austrian VET system benefits greatly from a well-tuned link between educational flows, a corresponding legal framework, and organizational linkages which provide for matching framework curricula, a system of recognized occupational qualifications, and coordinated learning in schools and in businesses.

Full-time VET-schools and colleges provide courses designed to match well-defined job profiles at the skilled worker and technician level. Technical and vocational schools as well as colleges provide a path for a managed transition from public schooling to the world of work.

Dual-Education and Apprenticeships

The most visible and best performing link between initial VET and the labor market is the apprenticeship system. Apprenticeships combine company-based training (practical/on-the-job training, 80% of total time spent) with periods of school-based learning (20%) where key competences and knowledge of the theoretical aspects of a given trade or sector are acquired.

The apprentice is involved in the production or service-provision process and acquires the necessary skills under real-life conditions. Apprenticeship training is open to all young people who have completed nine years of mandatory schooling. Up to 36% of an age cohort take up an apprenticeship. Currently some 100,000 apprentices are being trained in about 29,000 companies in more than 200 defined occupations. In order to cope with new challenges, such as meeting the needs of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” occupational profiles are regularly updated and training rules re-designed.

Great importance is given to preparing for changing technical standards and the demands they place on skills fit for the future. It is crucial that the VET system prepares apprentices and students for digital opportunities and strengthens subject-related as well as vocational training in key areas such as network technology, business IT, commercial data processing and analysis, digital business, computer engineering, or media informatics. Many new occupational profiles developed recently concern such areas.

Quality, employability and adaptability, not just job security, are key for building the base which helps us to benefit from cutting edge developments and the opportunities to be found in the knowledge- and skill-based global economy of the 21st century.

Universities of Applied Sciences: practice-oriented professional tertiary education

Practice-oriented education opens a broad range of possibilities for young people – on the upper secondary as well as the tertiary level. Set up from scratch in 1994, Austrian Universities of Applied Sciences have become an integral part of the Austrian higher education system. They offer practice-oriented tertiary education at the bachelor and master level, with required practical training as a mandatory part of the bachelor curricula. Compared to public universities, Universities of Applied Sciences offer a broad range of study programs in various areas of study (engineering, economics, social and health studies, natural sciences, arts and design, military and police sciences). Admission procedures, proper staff-student ratios, and tightly organized classes lead to best results in terms of graduation rates and graduates’ employability.

Study programs especially designed for working professionals are a special feature, allowing people from various educational backgrounds to start academic careers. About 40% of students study parallel to working, their study programs are especially adapted to the needs of working professionals (regarding the timetable as well as the didactic concept).

Part of the policy agenda introducing Universities of Applied Sciences was the regional establishment of higher education institutions, particularly in rural areas, to support links to the regional economy. Universities of Applied Sciences work in close cooperation with local businesses, most of them SMEs. They develop and conduct joint R&D projects, promoting innovation in local businesses and scientific progress. Regional businesses offer practical training and internships, and professional experts are part of the teaching staff.