Hello Sasha
Thanks for your reply and for launching the topic.
I tried to find out tonight if I was ment to do something about this, but that's fine now.
Yes, even in our neighbour states colleges are higher regarded as an apprenticeship could ever be.
So, foreigners who came to live here are astonished when they learn more about our system.
The selection wether or not you go to college is quite simpel: you have a test to pass. And they sort of see to it that it is not too easy to pass. You take that test either after the 6th grade or then later from the 8th or even 9th grade, depending on your progress in school.
For all who do not want to go to school any longer after the 9th grade, or fail to pass the test to a college or then do not pass the first 3 months at that college, take up a professional education in a firm as an apprentice - it is very rare that you do nothing about your education.

The system with those apprenticeships have sort of a long tradition and go back, if you like, to the Medieval guilds. They were further developed in the fifties when services and products were in high demand.

At first, private firms like the mechanical factories worked it out in detail for their own apprentices. Later the state and the crafts organisations took it over, teachers and buildings included. An important input to what should be tought in an apprenticeship comes from the professional associations.

They still have their own courses for the highest education for craftsmen you can get - a master in carpentry, for instance.

Another question is, wether or not young people wish to get their hands dirty...;) Not all of them want that, but still quite a lot. And because there are plenty of perspectives after finishing your apprenticeship it is not a dead end. Because all the apprentices work in a firm they get to know how things are really done at a young age. And that is an asset.

I once talked with a guy from East Berlin when the DDR still existed. He had studied at a college, yes. But, on top of that, every student had to go and work for a few months in a factory too while studying. In his case, this was a large mechanical factory.

Sometimes I think by myself it would be nice when college students could have a break from school and get to know the "real world" a bit better - like the guy from East Berlin.

Funny enough: soon after 1990 he started his own business with a colleague, sort of a start up. They specialised in Quality Assurance. To speed these processes up they used videocameras and software to find iregularities in products. Simple things at first, like crumbled buiscits or missing parts, and developed it further to more complicated applications.
That was interesting, indeed!

But Sasha, what we have in common are schools and Universities that are available for anyone who is good enough. That's fair, and helps a lot to improve the average educational level in countries, in my view.

I hope this conversation inspires others to participate and tell us how professional education is handled in their countries:)

Have a good day and thanks again for setting up this homepage.

Urs