New prospects for educators

Starting position/challenge

Those who have completed a degree in education often face difficulties when entering the German labour market. These are often, for example, teachers with many years of occupational experience who, due to regulations, are unable to practise their occupation in Germany. A need to highlight alternatives in occupational fields within education therefore exists – especially in non-regulated occupational fields. As part of this, existing specialist knowledge, skills and competencies are supplemented with specific content in the local context. The conceptualising of the certificate programme’s methodology and teaching approach for application in a whole range of different educational fields proved particularly challenging for programme designers at the University of Augsburg (Chair of Education) in Network IQ Bavaria – MigraNet.

Implementing the concept of "Further training for educational occupations"

The concept behind the certificate programme is founded in the central overarching and dynamic idea of aligning the labour market’s and society's requirements with the individual needs of participants. This incorporates and values previously acquired knowledge, skills and competencies. The heterogeneity of the target group demands well-developed and customised support measures. The semester includes a foundation module addressing the fundamentals of educational practice and thinking as well as the educational action fields. One focus of the main module is heterogeneity, the teaching approach and methodology to support this, as well as intercultural education and competence. The practical module covers educational practice through to application procedures in social sector occupations.

This dynamic concept is constantly evaluated on the basis of lessons learned. Participation in further training provides opportunities for progression within the international higher education system, i.e ECTS credits are gained which can also count towards other courses. An additional course offer covering cross-specialism competencies completes the further training. This course establishes the connection with other specialist academic disciplines and develops the skills needed for the labour market. In addition, it has been possible to recruit around 45 network and strategic steering partners over recent years – a real plus for exchange formats with educational practice.

Conclusion

"Further training for educational occupations in Germany as an immigration country" has now been implemented on eight occasions involving a total of 127 participants. When the project was launched in 2016, there was no comparable provision at all in Germany targeted at immigrant teachers or other specialist educational personnel in the general educational field. The demand for this at the University of Augsburg was therefore huge. Follow-up surveys have shown that two-thirds of participants have found employment appropriate to their profession.