ABTTF Cries for Support for Vocational Education

Recently worsening economic situation in Germany has been causing a lot of small and medium enterprises to go bankrupt and as an expected outcome German youth do not prefer anymore to get vocational education but rather they prefer to find a job which will guarantee a safe and quick income.

This picture seems to result in a shortage of educated employees in the very near future. The problem of finding a workplace to get vocational training still continues but migrant youth are more disadvantaged and in a worse condition when compared to the German youth of same age group.

According to the latest figures, the ratio of the migrant origin youth that could find a vocational training place has decreased by 50% in the last 10 years. During the same period, the ratio of finding a vocational training place has decreased only by 1,7%. This figure is a strong indicator that shows the disadvantaged position of migrant youth in Germany.

Migrants try their best to improve their disadvantaged position in means of vocational education and they get various actions to strengthen those efforts. Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe contributed to the efforts of migrants by getting approval to provide one person vocational training opportunity during 2006 – 2007 semester in the Head Office of ABTTF in Witten.

Serap Yusuf, who has been working as a trainee in the Head Office, will continue to work as vocational training student on stated days in the Head Office of ABTTF while she is enrolling in the vocational school for 3 years.

Halit Habipoğlu, Chairman of ABTTF, emphasized the necessity of the contribution of migrant organizations and migrant enterprises to improve the disadvantaged position of migrant youth when they want to integrate the German work life and he continued “As ABTTF; we advise our youth to get vocational education while it is very important to integrate German work life. The only way to survive in such difficult economic conditions as a migrant is to have specialized knowledge. We could only offer one student this possibility, we will do our best to educate her with our expertise and knowledge.” Habipoğlu called for support from other migrant organizations and migrant enterprises to provide those disadvantaged migrant youth vocational training opportunities.