About BWP

BWP

BWP — Berufsbildung in Wissenschaft und Praxis (Vocational Education and Training in Science and Practice) — is the specialist journal for Germany's vocational-education system, published by the Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB, Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training) in Bonn. With issues numbered H1 through H4 each year, the journal bridges the research and the practice: the current findings of vocational-education research, the policy debates, and the practical consequences for the dual system. The 2026 issues — "Jugend" (youth), "Gesundheitsberufe" (health professions), "Fachkräftepotenziale" (skilled-worker potentials), "Innovationen durch KI" (innovations through AI) — show the range: the young people, the occupations, the skills, the future.

Overview

The dual system — the journal's institutional context — deserves its telling. Germany's dual vocational training — the apprentices learning in the company and the vocational school simultaneously — is the world's most admired skills model: the 1.3 million trainees, the 330 recognized occupations, the chambers' examinations. The system's stakeholders — the companies training, the schools teaching, the chambers examining, the unions and employer associations negotiating, the federal and state governments legislating — form the BWP's readership: the researchers studying the system, the policymakers steering it, the practitioners running it. The challenges — the demographic trough (the 8.3 million youth, the lowest share since 1950), the training-market mismatch (the unfilled places alongside the unplaced applicants), the academization (the Abitur holders bypassing the dual system), the digitalization and the AI — fill the journal's pages: the science analyzing, the practice responding, the policy deciding. The editorial program follows the dual system's agenda: the youth (their life-worlds, their future perspectives, the vocational education as the socialization space), the occupations (the health professions' dynamics, the skilled-worker recruitment and qualification), the training personnel (the trainers' role in the successful transition to working life), and the transformations (the generative AI changing the occupational activities and competence requirements, the European transparency instruments, the democracy education).

Each issue — the thematic focus plus the "Aktuelle Meldungen" (current reports), the "besondere Zahl" (the special number: the infographic statistic), and the most-read articles — combines the research depth with the practical relevance. The 2026 youth issue — the findings of youth and socialization research, the life-worlds and future perspectives of young people, the role of vocational education as the socialization space for youth development — exemplifies the approach: the science informing the practice.

History

The BWP's history is the BIBB's history: the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training — the federal government's research and development institute for vocational education, based in Bonn — publishing its journal as the bridge between the science and the practice. The institute's mission — the research, the development, the advice for the vocational-education policy — gives the journal its institutional character: the state's research informing the dual system's stakeholders.

The journal's continuity — the H-numbered issues through the years, the 2024 and 2026 volumes documented on the portal — shows the steady publication: the quarterly rhythm carrying the research to the practice. The digital extension — the bwp-zeitschrift.de portal with the current reports, the issue archive (via bibb.de), the theme dossiers — carries the journal into the continuous flow. The podcasts — "BWP für die Ohren" — deserve their detailed telling. The AzubiView — appearing four times a year — complements the occupation profiles in the BWP: the trainees themselves speaking about their training daily life — the tax-clerk trainees (the trusted persons and organization talents keeping track of the numbers, deadlines, and laws), and the other occupations' apprentices giving the practical, vivid insights. The BWP-Podcast — tackling the current topics discussed in vocational-education science, policy, and practice — gives the debates the audio form: the researchers, the policymakers, the practitioners in conversation. The "Wiederentdeckt – neu gelesen" (rediscovered, reread) series — Stefan Udelhofen revisiting a 1975 contribution on the "Jungarbeiter" (young workers) and the era's educational-policy reforms — shows the journal's historical consciousness: the vocational-education debates' long continuities, the past informing the present.

Coverage and Content

The editorial program follows the vocational-education year. The youth coverage — the 2026 "Jugend" issue — treats the young people's life-worlds: the 8.3 million 15-to-24-year-olds (2024, the lowest share since 1950), their high expectations and great uncertainty, their mental-health burdens' effects on occupational orientation, their professional-identity negotiation. The occupation coverage — the "Gesundheitsberufe" issue — addresses the dynamic field: the 6.2 million health-sector workers (every seventh employed person), the skilled-worker recruitment and qualification, the structural preparedness. The transformation coverage — "Innovationen durch KI" — analyzes the generative AI's spread in the working world: the consequences for employees, companies, and educational processes.

The current reports — the "Aktuelle Meldungen" — carry the research news: the training-application dropouts (the survey on when prospective trainees jump off and what reasons companies suspect), the innovative competitions ("Jugend forscht"), the training as the (in)voluntary additional task, the part-time training's new impulses from the Vocational Training Modernization Act. The "besondere Zahl" — the infographic statistic — visualizes the key numbers. The democracy-education issue — the journal's civic dimension — deserves its telling. "Das Erstarken populistischer und extremistischer Strömungen bedroht die offene Gesellschaft" — the strengthening of populist and extremist currents threatens the open society: the BWP issue centers the democracy-education concept and its didactic implementation. The vocational schools — the trainees' second learning venue — become the democracy's workshop: the young workers learning the democratic participation alongside the occupational skills. The European-transparency-instruments issue — how transparency can be achieved in shaping a European education area, the instruments' relevance for vocational education in Europe — addresses the mobility: the trainees' qualifications recognized across the borders, the European education area's construction. The in-company qualification issue — the current great challenges in the initial and continuing training of skilled workers, how companies react, which factors influence their decisions — serves the training companies: the investment decisions, the strategies, the conditions.

Organization and Ownership

BWP is published by the Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB), Bonn — the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, the federal government's vocational-education research institute. The journal appears with issues H1–H4 per year. The portal bwp-zeitschrift.de carries the current content; the BIBB's bibb.de site hosts the publication archive. The podcasts — AzubiView and the BWP-Podcast — are the journal's audio extensions.

The BIBB — the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training — deserves its institutional telling. The Bonn institute — the federal government's central research and development institution for vocational education — advises the policymakers, develops the training regulations, researches the training market, and publishes the data: the annual Berufsbildungsbericht (vocational-education report), the statistics, the forecasts. The BWP — the institute's journal — is the research's public face: the findings translated for the stakeholders, the debates hosted, the practice informed. The institute's independence — the research integrity within the federal system — underwrites the journal's credibility: the science speaking with its own voice. The Bonn location — the former capital's federal institutions — places the journal at the policy's heart: near the ministries, the social partners, the federal agencies. The business model follows the institutional-press pattern: the subscriptions and the institute's funding. Detailed circulation and revenue figures are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The journal's digital home is bwp-zeitschrift.de — the portal carrying the current reports, the issues (Jugend, Gesundheitsberufe, Fachkräftepotenziale, Innovationen durch KI, Ausbildungspersonal, Europäische Transparenzinstrumente, Betriebliche Qualifizierung, Demokratiebildung), the most-read articles, and the theme dossiers. The BIBB's bibb.de — the publication database — archives the issues. The podcasts — the AzubiView (quarterly, the trainees' voices) and the BWP-Podcast (the current vocational-education debates) — extend the journal into the audio: "BWP für die Ohren" (BWP for the ears).

The digital strategy follows the institutional logic: the print quarterly issues for the deep research-practice coverage — the youth, the occupations, the transformations — the portal for the current reports and the dossiers, the podcasts for the voices. As the vocational-education system's journal — published by the BIBB in Bonn — BWP remains the dual system's bridge: the science and the practice — quarterly in print, continuously on bwp-zeitschrift.de, audibly in the podcasts.