CIFAL Dakar Visits Germany to Strengthen Capacity Building in Vocational Training

The centrepiece of the visit was an immersion in Germany's Duale Ausbildung - the dual apprenticeship system that has made German vocational education a globally recognized benchmark for youth employment and workforce integration. Unlike traditional classroom-based training, the dual system divides learning between a vocational school and a company, with apprentices spending part of their week in theoretical instruction and the rest in supervised on-the-job training with an employer. The model is lauded internationally for its ability to align skills formation precisely with the needs of the labor market, reduce youth unemployment, and produce graduates who are work-ready from their first day of employment.

CIFAL Dakar engaged directly with two institutions that embody this approach: the Berufskolleg Technik Siegen, a specialized technical vocational college, and the Campus Berufliche Bildung Buschhütten, a professional education campus with deep roots in the region's industrial and craft sectors. Through structured exchanges with educators, administrators, and training coordinators at both institutions, CIFAL Dakar explored the pedagogical architecture, institutional partnerships, financing models, and quality assurance mechanisms that give the German system its effectiveness and began the careful work of identifying what elements could be adapted and transposed to the Senegalese context.

The visit to the University of Siegen provided an additional academic dimension, situating the vocational training dialogue within a broader higher education and research framework, and opening pathways for potential academic cooperation alongside the more practice-oriented institutional partnerships being developed.