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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

President's Wednesday Message


Last week, I participated in a study tour of southern Germany, fully funded by The Goethe Institut. It was a remarkable and invaluable experience. Our nine person group included colleagues ranging from community college presidents to workforce leaders to policy fellows. (It was also supposed to include a representative from the US Dept. of Education, but the government shut down prevented that.) We were in Germany to learn more about their “dual system” of education—which combines classroom education with apprenticeship training--and how it interacts with both employment and higher education.

The German system, as we were told frequently, is complex, and it has become even moreso. The recently elected German government has enacted education reforms that resulted in the creation of a new type of school. In brief, the system requires a decision prior to the 5th grade year that tracks students into one of four options: a trade school, a business school, a college-prep school, or a new option, a community school. Students in the trade and business tracks combine their classroom education with paid apprenticeships in 10th through 12th grades. There are opportunities to transition between the tracks, but we learned that moving from the trade school track to the university track is more difficult, while moving from the business school track to the university track is easier.

The idea of tracking and the hierarchical structure of the German system may seem like an anathema to us, but historically, it has built a strong German middle class and offered a pathway into sustainable wages for most citizens. The challenge, however, is that Germany is changing.

The country, like most of Europe, has a very low birthrate and does not have the population to meet the demands of its strong economy and workforce. As a consequence, the country is attracting a migrant workforce that is keeping the economy moving but challenging German cultural norms and embedded systems. Most migrants do not speak German as a first language and bring their own cultural traditions. They also are frequently fleeing countries where public education is limited and weak, where poverty has been long and intergenerational. German educational systems have been set up to serve a homogeneous population raised in a hierarchical tradition, and significantly, it is designed around a student population that enters education as children and progresses along a traditional path (rather than as returning or underprepared adults). Throughout our tour, our hosts were honest about the conclusion they have reached: if Germany is to continue to succeed, it must find new and more effective ways to address the needs of a diverse population seeking economic opportunity and social mobility.

To most of us on the tour, the challenges facing the German system sounded very familiar. We took away much about the dual system, especially the apprenticeship aspect, that could inform our own practice, but we also left our German colleagues with a recommendation to explore the American community college system as a way to address these new challenges. Community colleges have grown in the US in tandem with the need to provide access to the full diversity of our communities—whether these students are seeking careers to college transfer, whether they are 18 or 48. While certainly not perfect, our community college system provides a pathway currently absent from the German system, and it was clear that the community college concept was a newer one to our hosts. Those of us from community colleges extended an invitation for our new colleagues to visit us to see our innovative institutions in action.

The goal of the Goethe Institut in sponsoring the tour was to foster a better understanding between the US and modern Germany. Goal achieved! I hope that we can continue this cross-country collaboration in pursuit of educational opportunity. It is just what we—and our communities—need. Please feel free to share your thoughts on my blog.

Anne M. Kress
President's Office
10/16/2013