Long school journeys for trainees in Saxony: need for accommodation and better local transport

For their training, young people in Saxony sometimes have to travel long distances. In the result of a survey published on Thursday by the Chambers of Industry and Commerce and the Chambers of Crafts, more than a quarter of all apprentices are more than one and a half hours to the vocational school on the road. For a third, it is more than 50 kilometers distance, they need an accommodation. But here, too, the chambers see "a need to catch up," according to the report. A well-timed connection to the public local traffic would be indeed an alternative, but that lacked straight in rural regions.

The basic conditions are important with potential apprentices for the decision. The chambers demand therefore a "speedy inventory of the current situation" and training-friendly conditions. This must be a priority in view of increasing shortages of skilled workers, they say. "Quality of apprenticeship, shortage of teachers, cancelled classes, long routes to school, lack of or poor accommodation, rising training costs are issues that need to be addressed urgently and above all require timely, practical and unbureaucratic solutions."

In the survey, one-third of the companies said that accommodation was needed at the vocational school, 38 percent of apprentices live outside dormitories and boarding schools. Two-thirds travel to school by bus or train, and a quarter by car or moped. One in 20 companies stated that apprenticeship contracts did not materialize because of the distance to the vocational school, and eight percent because of the lack of accommodation. Half of the companies surveyed help finance their apprentices' accommodation, while 36 percent bear the entire cost. And 40 percent of companies reported regular cancellations of classes.