Institute for Holistic Learning Based on Montessori Education

71 Seufert, Robert - Austria - Robert.Seufert@tgm.ac.at
Vocational Education <strong>for</strong> Engineers shown on the example of the TGM (Das Technologische
Gewerbemuseum - The School of Technology)
The Vocational Education System in Austria and its importance <strong>for</strong> economic development in this country and
others will be presented. This efficient Education System should be introduced to other countries, specifically to the
new EU- members. With this in mind, this report should serve as a guide to copy this system and furthermore it
should encourage insight <strong>for</strong> this education system and announce the qualification of students who passed this
system.
Details will be shown on the example of the TGM (Technologisches Gewerbemuseum) in Vienna, especial on the
example of the Electronic Department.
Nevertheless common validity of the explained facts will be pointed out.
In this report construction, origin and structure of an optimal organisation should be visualised. It will be shown how
widely spread the professionalism is and how advanced the way of cooperation and complementation of science in
theory and practical employment with tight contact to commerce and industry as an important factor, is. By this
means, this system reached its importance especially in Austria.
The different educational sequences, courses of events and the educational methods as well as the different basics
and accesses <strong>for</strong> this system will be explained.
72 Seufert, Robert - Austria - Robert.Seufert@tgm.ac.at
Timetable conscious Curriculum - long term relelvant basic knowledge versus short-term content
specific knowledge
In this panel there should be fathomed out the sense of certification knowledge, witch becomes more and more
significance nowadays.
On one side there is the imparted knowledge, witch is queried from different institutes in a standardised pattern; but
this knowledge is very transient. On the other hand more and more companies expect various certificates from
there future employees. The number of achieved certificates is at this time a very important selection criterion in the
job market. But especially with nowadays development, which gets faster and faster all the time, the half-life period
<strong>for</strong> doubling your knowledge is about 6 years. This means, that some of the achieved certificates are outdated,
be<strong>for</strong>e schooling duration is finished and young people would get to work.
This is now raising the question, if it would not make more sense, to learn more about the fundamentals and the
tools to learn, rather than the specific knowledge itself. The tools to learn, means the knowledge <strong>for</strong> later using
diverse “self learning methods”. Maybe it makes sense to join “crash courses” <strong>for</strong> adopting innovations. Anyway in
standardised (vocational) education processes, these methods should be moved, if ever, to the very last phases of
the education. It might get very dangerous, especially <strong>for</strong> the ones involved, if too much importance is attached to
these certifications. To disobey these facts will lead directly to future unemployment, or at least to a tremendous
increase of necessity of retraining courses <strong>for</strong> the affected.
In fact it is very simple <strong>for</strong> many companies to always hire the newest trained people, equipped with the newest
certificates, just to fire them, as soon as their knowledge got obsolete and so on. As a side effect the wage cost of
newly hired personal are furthermore mostly much lower.
From there the target of this discussion should be, to find out how we can operate with these new training methods
and how we can take benefit from these tendencies, <strong>for</strong> all the concerned, people as well as companies? So, that
training and schooling <strong>for</strong> today’s and tomorrow’s young people improves persistent in the long term.
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