topic Education

Opportunities for the Disadvantaged

Young people with deficits in school and/or social problems as well as young migrants need targeted support for a successful start into their working life. One of the objectives of the BMBF programme for supporting young people with special needs is to provide all young people with a training opportunity by means of strengthening their competences.

"Training for all" is one of the main objectives of the Federal Government in education and vocational training policy. This objective includes those young people in particular who need special support on their way into training and working life. Supporting disadvantaged young people is understood as an important permanent task and is an integral part of vocational education and training.

A quantitative increase of funding programmes is not necessarily required for supporting young people in their transition from school to training and work and for their successful and permanent integration into the labour market. It is more important to efficiently use and intelligently combine the existing, diverse funding measures before and during training and in the transition into the world of work. We need a structural and qualitative, content-based development of the support for the disadvantaged, including targeted support of young people with a migration background.

With the BMBF programme "Promoting Competences - Vocational Qualification for Target Groups with Special Needs (BQF Programme)", which runs from 2001 to 2006, the Federal Government is making a contribution to further developing support for disadvantaged young people and young adults as well as to improving the education and training situation of migrants.

Comprehensive information on this programme is available under www.kompetenzen-foerdern.de.