Abstract:
Structural deficits in the training of childcare workers in day-care centres and crèches have been discussed in professional circles and the public for more than two decades. A shortage of skilled workers, the insufficient number of childcare places in day-care facilities, as well as inconsistencies in the financing of the vocational training programmes combined with high educational quality requirements have led to a significant need for reforms action. The introduction of practice-integrated training (PIA) for childcare workers in Baden-Württemberg in the 2012/2013 school year set a milestone for resolving the shortage of skilled workers in day-care centres for children. Trainees are now entitled to remuneration in the form of a trainee salary, which is a departure from the previous training regulations.
This thesis aims to reconstruct the educational policy procedures and processes that led to the successful establishment of practice-integrated training in Baden-Württemberg. Significant political stakeholders in the implementation of the reform project, their motives and their rationale for action are identified. The theory of governance forms the basis of the reconstruction by classifying the respective impact mechanisms as soft and hard measures of governance.
Selected private, political and government stakeholders who were directly involved in these reform processes were interviewed for this reconstruction using structured expert interviews. The expert interviews were evaluated using the documentary method, which records the meaning and the interpretation of the statements of these experts at various levels. The rationale for action was derived by correlating the implied motives of the stakeholders with their actual observed actions.
The reconstructed mechanisms of the PIA reform process can be integrated into the existing theory on political mobilisation processes. Measures of soft governance as well as hard governance could be identified. The implementing factors that led to the establishment of the PIA in Baden-Württemberg include the formation of coalitions between the stakeholders, the formulation of motivational strategies and a consensus among all stakeholders regarding the structural deficits in the training of childcare workers.
