[igk]

I 'm not sure if they are talking about "dualstudium", but I think this is a thing which needs to be advanced. There should be a separation between "skill education"(learning things for a job) and "human education" (learning things to become a better human/just for understanding). The latter we already enforce with 9 year Schulpflicht (which one could debate about prolonging) and then leave to the individual.

University education should not be or promise jobs, it should be about understanding certain fields on the deep level and being confronted with the bleeding edge of knowledge. Right now we are conflating the two, meaning we have a large number of students wasting their time in classrooms when for their goal they should either be getting deeper, tougher confrontation with the subject (if they want to do research/understand deeply) or practical "on the job" education (if they want to get a job). BWL is the worst culprit of this as far as my friends who studied it describe it.

[weinzierl]

> I 'm not sure if they are talking about "dualstudium",

I agree with what you wrote but the OP is not about Dualstudium. The "dual educational" the article refers to, is about non-univerity tertiary education (Duale Ausbildung). The dual part is the fact that this happens in a company and a (usually state run) school. [1]

As an example: If you want to work as a plumber in Germany you have to get a certificate. The only way to get the certificate is to participate in the dual educational system.

For a plumber that means to find an employer that is willing to give them a three and half year apprenticeship contract. The apprentice will work only three or four days, the other days they have to attend school. The exact details depend on the trade, some have a three work week, one school week schedule, but the general idea is that work and school education happen at the same time.

Not all trades follow this model but if they do it's mandatory. Also the newly certified plumber is only allowed to do plumbing jobs. To be allowed to install a heating system for example they have to make a run trough the dual system again, now with the HVAC guild. Just to install a new heating system you need at least a HVAC company, a plumber, an electrician and a mason. The HVAC guy won't touch any pipes, cables or bricks because he is not allowed to by law and discouraged by his guild. Same for the plumber, electrician and mason.

What the article misses to mention is that the system makes every task that falls in a regulated area very expensive. As a consequence of this it also leads to a lot of illicit work.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system

[JepZ]

You are right and I think half of the people here did not understand the difference between 'Duales Studium' and 'Duale Ausbildung'.

But on the other hand, I don't quite get what the Universities have to do with the dual education System?!? I mean, as far as I know, Universities are specialized in higher education.

[HarryHirsch]

It's called "skilled trade" for a reason. When the apprentice plumber has passed his apprenticeship everyone knows that this fellow knows his stuff and can follow developments in his field. If you want plumbing done, get a plumber, if you want electric get an electrician. If you want a trained monkey, go to America.

[dsfyu404ed]

That sounds incompatible with American values on several levels. Locking people into careers and preventing other skilled people from doing similar jobs because they haven't bought into a union or become part of a special group is the source of most things Americans hate about similar systems where we have them.

[zaph0d_]

The text said that they begin in the age of 15 or 16, so the "duale Ausbildung" system is meant by that, because "Dualstudenten" are usually 17 or 18 when they start. The "Dualstudium" combines the practical "Ausbildung" with an applied science bachelors degree like CS, EE, mechanical engineering and so on, so it double the stress, but you'll also get a lot of work experience, a bachelors degree and an apprenticeship diploma. Also you will get paid.

[FabHK]

At least historically, the understanding is that universities prepare for an academic career, while apprenticeship ("Ausbildung"), dual education ("das duale System"), and – since the 1970's – universities of applied sciences ("Fachhochschulen") prepare for the job.

[sjg007]

Well math, stats and engineering prepare you well for a career. CS algorithms and data structures does excluding the practical programming bit... in English you read and write a lot, critical thinking... all of these are critical skills for jobs.

[igk]

Yes and no. Best example I know:you can teach engineering as a very applied trade (basically, here's how to select a technique known to work and here is how to tune it), which is how they tend to do it at the Fachhochschulen, or you can teach it as "here's how previously we stole all the cool ideas from physics and maths and what new techniques we built, you'll hopefully be able to find out how to build on it", which is more common on universities.

Having worked with both, the difference is noticeable. The FH guys are actually usually much better engineers in "standard" problems, cleaner code etc, but if you have to drop down abstraction levels and make your own techniques, the university guys tend to fare better(already filtering out incompetent people). It's a different education, with different goals. One is more general and aims to deepen your general understanding, Hoping you'll be able to derive the techniques. The other focuses more on practical application that will get you a job now and hope you'll learn the deep understanding with time. But there is not as much connection between what is taught as one might think. Likewise, ask any professional trader what they think of academic finance.

My tl,dr is that I think university or something should have the explicit goal of teaching "useless" knowledge with the aim of giving deep understanding. Then everyone who just wants a job can avoid that, and we don't have to water down the curriculum