Index

Once a year, during the Berlinale film festival, the world of the silver screen focuses its attention on Berlin. And the city’s inhabitants are used to global interest. After all, the people of Berlin have lived in a capital city since 1458. However, there is also a shady side to the city’s history: the rule of the National Socialists and the East German regime, which built a wall right through the heart of the city. Since German unification in 1990, Berlin has once again been the undivided capital city. The Museum Island, the Berlin Philharmonic and more than 50 theaters ensure the city is unique in terms of cultural life. The “academic capital” boasts 39 universities and institutes of higher education, while also being home to businesses such as Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, while ITB, the worlds leading travel trade show, accentuates the slogan “Berlin is worth seeing”.

Capital: Berlin
Population: 3,866,385
Surface area: 892 km2

Brandenburg surrounds the capital city of Berlin and benefits from the latter’s “gin and martini belt”. However, with its numerous lakes and forests it also has several trump cards of its own. With the Hohenzollern castles, and in particular Sanssouci Castle, which is included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List, the heart of the Kingdom of Prussia possesses jewels of courtly architecture. Indeed Potsdam is considered one of Germany’s most beautiful cities, featuring many architectural highlights. Today the citizens of Brandenburg boast Hollywood productions in the film-producing town of Babelsberg, the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder and more than 300 foreign companies, including the German HQ of Ebay.

Capital: Potsdam
Population: 2,573,135
Surface area: 29,654 km2

The Federal Government and cabinet is made up of the Federal Chancellor and the Federal Ministers. While the Chancellor holds the power to issue directives, the ministers have departmental powers, meaning that they independently run their respective ministries in the framework of those directives. Moreover, the cabinet abides by the collegial principle, in disputes the Federal Government decides by majority. The affairs of state are managed by the Chancellor.

Germany is a federal state. Both the central federal government and the 16 federal states have independent areas of jurisdiction. The government in Berlin is responsible for foreign policy, European policy, defense, justice, employment, social affairs, tax and health. The federal states are responsible for internal security, schooling, tertiary education, administration and local government. Central government’s area of responsibility is mainly limited to legislation, in which the federal states are involved through their presence in the Bundesrat. It is the duty of the federal administration systems, on the other hand, to enforce not only the laws that apply in their own particular state, but those of central government as well.

The reasons for this task sharing lie in the past: The German nation state emerged in 1871 through the union of several independent states. This made the establishment of a larger central administration system superfluous. The three city states are a peculiarity among the 16 federal states. Their territory is limited in each case to the major cities of Berlin, Bremen/Bremerhaven and Hamburg, whereas the other larger states comprise a number of city and rural municipalities.

Dual vocational training is quite unique internationally. After leaving school, many young people follow one of more than 300 state-recognised apprenticeship training programmes under the dual system. This entry into professional life differs from vocational training based only in colleges such as is customary in many other countries. The practical part of the course takes part on 3 or 4 days of the week in a company; the other 1 or 2 days are spent with specialist theoretical instruction in a vocational school. The courses take 2-3.5 years. In-company training is supported by courses and additional qualification facilities outside the companies. Training is financed by the companies, which pay the trainees/apprentices wages, while the government bears the costs of the vocational schools. Some 500,000 young people conclude new vocational training agreements under the two-track vocational training system each year Thanks to the Two-Track System, in Germany the number of young people without a profession or traineeship is comparatively low. This combination of theory and practical work guarantees that the craftsmen and skilled workers have prime qualifications. Vocational training is also a launchpad for a career that can, via advanced training, lead to participants becoming master craftsmen and women. Today, a qualification track is possible that via advanced training alongside the job can lead even as far as a university Master’s degree.

There is great international interest in the German vocational training system. One focus of the international vocational training cooperation activities by Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB) is to foster cooperation with partner institutes.

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