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Career Guidance in the Life Course – Structures and Services in Germany
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Career Guidance in the Life Course

Structures and Services in Germany

1. Introduction In view of the increasing importance of lifelong learning
in the modern knowledge-based society and the growing
In order to enable individuals to manage their educational necessity of adequate guidance services, this differentia-
and working life effectively and make well-informed de- tion is increasingly losing its meaning in favour of inte-
cisions about their career, all citizens in Germany have grative and lifelong guidance provision across all sectors.
access to guidance and counselling services at any stage Therefore, co-ordination, networking and co-operation are
of their lives – whether they are in education or training, necessary preconditions for improving the transparency
employed, unemployed or out of the workforce. This bro- and coherence as well as the efficiency and effectiveness
chure will provide an overview of the basic structure of the of the multiple guidance services.
German guidance system – especially for foreign readers
or those interested in a brief survey – without any preten- Guidance for education, career and employment in
sion to detailed comprehensiveness. Germany is based on the comprehensive definition of
guidance commonly agreed between the partners in the
The structure of guidance provision reflects the con- European Union. It comprises all forms of educational,
stitutional legislation for the German education and em- vocational and career guidance and counselling including
ployment systems with its split responsibilities between career orientation and education, assessment of compe-
Federation, Federal States (Länder) and municipalities. tences and self-information facilities. To facilitate reading,
The responsibility for education and culture lies with the the term “career guidance” or briefly “guidance” is used
16 Länder, including the school sector, the higher educa- here to indicate all forms of educational, vocational and
tion sector, and (partly) adult and continuing education. employment-related guidance activities.
Employment and labour market policy, however, are under
the responsibility of the Federal Government, as well as
vocational training and vocational further training poli- 2. Structure of the educational
cies. This also includes the provision of career guidance system in Germany
by the Federal Employment Agency (FEA) with its local
Employment Agencies (EA). In addition to Federal institu- The school system differs from Land to Land. Neverthe-
tions and the Länder governments, the local municipalities less, in general it has the following structure: pre-school,
are important players in the provision of guidance services primary, secondary, tertiary education and continuing edu-
– either through their Adult Education Centres (Volkshoch­ cation (see diagram on page 5).
schulen) or through their social welfare services.
All pupils in Germany attend primary school (Grund­
EU Guidance Definition: schule) which covers grades 1 to 4 (in some Länder,
“In the context of lifelong learning, guidance refers to a grades 1 to 6). After primary education, lower secondary
range of activities that enables citizens of any age and at any education follows in Secondary Schools (Hauptschule/
point in their lives to identify their capacities, competences Sekundar schule), Intermediate Schools (Realschule) or in
and interests, to make educational, training and occupa- Grammar Schools (Gymnasium). Many of the Länder in-
tional decisions and to manage their individual life paths in creasingly set up integrated and comprehensive school-
learning, work and other settings in which these capacities types which offer several educational tracks and lead to
and competences are learned and/or used.” various school-leaving certificates. After lower secondary
(Council of the European Union 2004) education up to grade 9 or 10, compulsory full-time gen-
eral education is completed.
In the context of these legal responsibilities the Ger-
man career guidance system is traditionally based on a dis- For pupils with special educational needs whose devel-
tinction between educational guidance (Bildungs beratung) opment cannot be adequately assisted in general educa-
in the educational sector on one hand and vocational guid- tion various types of special schools (Förderschulen) have
ance (Berufsberatung) in the vocational training and em- been set up.
ployment sector on the other.