Ausbildungsvorbereitung von Jugendlichen mit besonderem Förderbedarf: das NRW-Modell

Within educational policy today there is no more important or difficult problem than the improvement of the poor prospects facing those adolescents with special educational needs who are trying to get a fully qualifying vocational education after school. In this respect, reforms that make the ‘transition system’ more efficient are long overdue. For this reason the Department of Education of NRW plans to aggregate the different programs of pre-vocational training into one homogeneous preparation course for vocational training. On the basis of empirical research (expert interviews, focus group discussions) at different vocational schools the present study reveals a number of institutional, organizational and didactical problems in the planning and execution of these preparatory courses. They increase the difficulties in improving the competencies and transition prospects of adolescents with regard to their considerably different social, biographical, cognitive and affective preconditions. On the basis of these results, the paper gives some proposals for the rearrangement of the pre-vocational training courses, especially more institutionalization of the mission ‘pre-vocational training’ at the vocational schools and more professionalization of the teaching staff.