A system of apprenticeship called Duale Ausbildung ("dual education") allows students in vocational training to learn in a company as well as in a state-run vocational school.
"Dual education" Austria was one of the worst-performing countries in the 2009 Pisa tests while informal, inventive Alberta (in Canada and Finlandd, in which vocational and academic learning are mixed until later in adolescence, remain at the top.
The "dual education" principle of countries like Austria, where more than half of 14-year-olds leave school to take up indentured employment within a wide range of industries, has gained purchase in rightwing circles.
Germany's much-admired dual education system (in which apprentices are trained jointly by employers and at specialist vocational schools) has grown in Upper Bavaria, not because it was seen as the more responsible thing to do, but because companies, unable to "buy in" a fully trained-up workforce, often had to mould the workers they needed themselves.
Ha Jin "generously provides a dual education: a crash course in Chinese society during and since the Cultural Revolution, and a more leisurely but nonetheless compelling exploration of the less exotic terrain that is the human heart," Francine Prose said here.
Ibn Gabirol's dual education, typical for the Jewish intelligentsia in the larger cities, must have encompassed both the entire Hebrew literary heritage the Bible, Talmud, and other rabbinic writings and, in particular, Hebrew linguistics—and the Arabic, including the Qurʾān, Arabic secular and religious poetry and poetics, and the philosophical, philological, and possibly medical literature.
These foster promising youngsters and educate them in boarding schools, similar to the dual-education system in German industry.Also typically German, says Mr Nolte, was a consensus for sustainable meritocracy.
But does its dual-education system deserve so much credit, and should other countries adopt it Although based on older traditions, it formally dates from 1969.
In his State of the Union address this year, President Obama even praised Germany's dual-education system, mixing hands-on training at businesses with course work.
And though it has a strong dual-education system that trains pupils for industrial jobs, Germany has found school reform hard and lags behind other countries in such measures as teacher-pupil ratios.
Dual-education systems that equip the young with standardised diplomas and liberal employment protection legislations, such as in Switzerland, are well known to allow for smooth transitions from school-to-work (see Fuentes [2011]; De Lange et al. [2014]; van der Velden and Wolbers [2003]; Gangl [2003]; Breen [2005]).
