Key points at a glance
- Hands-on experience instead of theory: Direct insights into companies help young people discover STEM careers and overcome initial reservations.
- Early contact pays off: Companies meet potential young talent and strengthen their employer brand.
- A local presence: The 35 regional networks in Rhineland-Palatinate offer every company a suitable way to get involved in career guidance.
Mr Kafitz, what is the practical benefit of connecting schools and businesses? Could you give an example?
Career guidance has the greatest impact when students can experience it first-hand. Young people rarely choose a career based solely on brochures or information they find online. What matters are real insights into working life: into company processes, occupations and the people who do these jobs every day.
This is where SCHULEWIRTSCHAFT comes in. Our regional networks create reliable links between schools and companies. We give schools access to businesses, and businesses access to schools. This creates opportunities for direct contact that are often difficult to organise in everyday school life.
Company visits are a good example. Students can speak with apprentices and skilled employees. They see modern production facilities and laboratories, learn about innovative technologies and get answers to questions that often remain unanswered in class or in traditional career counselling. This helps reduce uncertainty and can often lead to internships or, later, apprenticeships.
Why do some young people feel unsure about direct contact?
Many young people who are now exploring career options spent part of their school years during the pandemic. From our experience, some of them find one-to-one conversations difficult. During a company visit, they speak to people who are almost their own age and realise: they are just like me. I can talk to them normally.
Why are parents important in career guidance?
When students can try something out at a company – for example, working with a Bunsen burner in a laboratory – and take home small samples of their work, parents can see their enthusiasm. Parents play an important role in career guidance and career choices.
How do companies benefit from SCHULEWIRTSCHAFT networks and projects?
They present themselves as attractive employers and get to know potential young talent at an early stage. In our experience, apprenticeships work particularly well when young people have had the opportunity to get to know a company in person before applying.
What makes the transition from school to industrial STEM careers difficult in Rhineland-Palatinate?
In my view, the main challenge is not a lack of interest in STEM careers. The problem is a lack of access to real working life. Many students simply do not know about the wide range of industrial apprenticeship occupations. Others still associate industry with outdated ideas. When they hear the word “industry”, they think of old factories.
But the chemical and pharmaceutical industry in particular offers highly modern workplaces shaped by digitalisation, automation, sustainability and innovation. There are many exciting career paths, but too few opportunities for young people to discover them.
How does SCHULEWIRTSCHAFT improve the transition from school to industrial careers?
We see ourselves as a bridge between education and business. Our role is to connect schools and companies and to build education partnerships. This makes industrial STEM careers more visible and more attractive. At the same time, companies can support young people at an early stage of their career guidance. That is a sustainable way to secure skilled workers for the future.
How can a company get involved in one of your networks?
Getting started is deliberately straightforward. Rhineland-Palatinate has 35 regional SCHULEWIRTSCHAFT networks. This means that companies can find an established contact and a network they can join in almost every region.
Together with the regional networks, we look at what type of involvement suits each company. There is no one-size-fits-all model. Many partnerships begin with a manageable first step: a company visit, a company presentation at a school, taking part in a career guidance event, or offering internships. These first activities often develop into long-term education partnerships.
Within a company, the heads of apprenticeship training, HR departments or apprenticeship marketing teams are often the first points of contact. Career guidance becomes especially authentic, however, when apprentices, trainers or skilled employees share insights into their everyday work. They should therefore be involved as well.
What STEM initiatives do your projects offer?
Rhineland-Palatinate has an impressive range of innovative, exemplary and effective STEM projects. I am particularly proud of this. They show what is possible when businesses and schools bring together their expertise and create hands-on career guidance together.
The projects range from company visits and practical experience days to student projects with companies, workplace internships for teachers and technology workshops. They also include formats in which apprentices present their occupations directly at schools. Regional networks develop solutions that are tailored to local needs, highly practical and built to have a lasting impact.
