Evaluation des Projekts "Werkstatt-Schule Saarland" : Abschlussbericht

"This research report is based on the evaluation of the project 'Werkstatt-Schule Saarland'. The project aimed at the reintegration of highly disadvantaged young people into institutional education, helping them graduating from school and thus increasing their chances of a successful school-to-training-transition. In so called 'Werkstattklassen', which were installed at vocational training centres ('Berufsbildungszentren') and into which low-achieving young people could proceed after eight years of schooling, the students were taught in small classes, received intense supervision from social workers, and attended a practical training of two days a week. Thereby, the project sought to improve the occupational orientation and social skills of the young people as well as to increase their learning motivation. With regard to the objective of reintegration into institutional education the project can be seen as successful. The share of absentees in project classes could be reduced by 30 percentage points (compared to a reduction of 10 percentage points in the control classes). In general, the students' motivation of attending school increased drastically. At the end of school, only 68 per cent of the project students, but 77 per cent of the control students graduated successfully with a lower secondary school degree ('Hauptschulabschluss', equating the ISCED level 2). However, as the target group of this project were young people who were classified as not being able to graduate at a regular school this quota can be seen as a success. A comparison of different achievement groups reveals, however, that only participants who enter into the project with good grades did perform better than comparable students in control classes. In contrast, students with mixed or poor grades at the beginning of the project did not better than comparable students in control classes. This difference can be found although the project's students showed a larger increase in their grades than the control students over the course of the ninth grade. Regarding the transition into vocational training there are no differences between these two groups: 17 per cent of the students in project classes and 18 per cent of the students in control classes had started an apprenticeship three months after leaving the Berufsbildungszentrum." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))