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National Skills Strategy

Continuing Vocational Education and Training

A career without skills development? As good as impossible. The National Skills Strategy strengthens continuing education and training and enhances individual development prospects.

Opportunities

  • The aim of the National Skills Strategy is to boost participation in continuing education and training. It thus contributes to ensuring the supply of skilled labour. Following on from the EU’s targets for 2030, Germany has committed to increasing participation in continuing training to 65 percent.
  • The National Skills Strategy creates better individual development opportunities and career prospects. The aim is to improve the findability and suitability of continuing training opportunities. Access to advice services, funding and training opportunities will be made easier.
  • The National Skills Strategy details the further development of strategies for future skills, for skills planning in businesses, and for corporate and collective approaches to strengthening continuing education and training.
  • The National Skills Strategy promotes online continuing training that provides increased transparency and innovative learning opportunities. It fosters secure structures within online continuing training.

The National Skills Strategy has ushered in Germany’s transformation into a country of continuing skills development. In times of digital, demographic and environmental change, continuing training and lifelong learning offer development opportunities and individual prospects, while also helping to ensure the supply of skilled labour. 

In this context, the National Skills Strategy pursues the following goals:

  • To facilitate access to advice services, funding and continuing training opportunities, taking into account financial and time constraints;
  • To intensify cooperation within regions and sectors;
  • To continue to develop strategies for future skills, for skills planning in businesses, and for corporate and collective approaches to strengthening continuing education and training;
  • To foster online continuing training that provides increased transparency and innovative learning opportunities.

The BMBF is contributing to the success of the National Skills Strategy with a number of measures: Under the umbrella of the Initiative for Excellence in Vocational Education and Training, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will advance modernization and innovation in vocational education and training. The heart of the “InnoVET Plus” flagship initiative is a novel innovation competition aimed at developing excellent vocational training opportunities and innovative continuing training pathways, and translating them into practice. The BMBF also supports the social partners that are testing a new approach to increasing lifelong learning participation by helping employees to qualify as “continuing training mentors”. 

The National Skills Strategy has proven to be successful in providing a platform for a long-term, overarching, collaborative process for exchanging experiences and ideas about continuing education and training policies.

Work structure of the National Skills Strategy

  1. Partners

    1

    17 partners work closely together under the umbrella of the National Skills Strategy: the Federal Government, the Länder, the social partners, and the Federal Employment Agency. They look at developments in continuing education and training from different perspectives and identify emerging challenges early on. The partners work together to develop a forward-looking policy framework and targeted funding initiatives.

  2. Structure

    2

    The partners in the National Skills Strategy meet regularly in implementation bodies, in the joint committee of the Federal Government and the Länder, and in topic‑specific working groups. The National Skills Conferences expand the technical discourse to also include external experts.

  3. Working groups

    3

    The working groups address the following topics:

    1. Future skills and key competencies
    2. Literacy and basic skills
    3. Skills development strategies in the face of technological and environmental change
    4. Access, advice services and skills assessment for under represented groups
    5. Work and employment conditions for continuing training staff

How can continuing training stakeholders build networks?

The National Skills Conference is a central event for Germany’s continuing training policy and is linked to the European Year of Skills. The first National Skills Conference took place in November 2023. Input from expert practitioners enriched the technical discourse, and the conference strengthened exchange and networks between Strategy partners and other external stakeholders. New impetus, inspiration and ideas for continuing the implementation of the National Skills Strategy were developed and adopted.The second National Skills Conference will be held in Berlin on 27 May 2025.

What reports are available in the context of the National Skills Strategy?

Editorial deadline for this text: 01.11.2024

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