Inside Germany's Leading Training Centre for Skilled Construction Workers

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Situated in the heart of Germany, Bildungswerk BAU Hessen-Thüringen eV (BiW), or the Training and Further Education Centre (AFZ) in Erfurt, Thuringia, central Germany, is one of the country’s leading centres for human resource training and development.

The institution is Germany’s leading provider of personnel education and development for the construction sector. BiW bridges the demand for skilled labour in the sector by helping recruit participants, including international ones, and by providing training and staff development for companies in the construction industry.

It offers a wide range of career orientation programmes, vocational training and comprehensive professional development for trainees, specialists and managers, including trainees or prospective skilled migrant workers from various countries.

The institution has five modern training workshops and around 20 classrooms, which can accommodate up to 750 participants per day. The training centre also serves as a central examination venue for vocational training certified by the German Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Crafts.

The state-of-the-art workshops and digital tools available at the institution enable practice-oriented training aligned with current industry requirements.

During ANTARA’s visit to the training institution as part of a programme of visits themed Skilled Labour Migration in early July, the Head of the Training Centre, Karl Heinz Pfünder, said that Germany’s construction industry is genuinely open to anyone wishing to work in the sector.

“The construction industry in Germany truly offers opportunities for anyone who wants them,” he said.

BiW has provided training to 1.5 million workers employed in Germany’s construction industry. Of that number, 20 per cent, or around 300,000, are migrant workers from various countries.

The organisation has 11 training locations spread across the states of Hesse and Thuringia. Each year it graduates 5,000 people and works with 3,000 businesses.

Every year, around 50,000 people take part in qualification training at BiW in the two German states. Among those trainees are some 1,500 participants from 36 different countries.

The areas of competence covered during training at BiW include not only building and construction machinery, but also building technology involving high-voltage systems engineering.

In this regard, BiW has undertaken an international exchange partnership with Vietnam to train and supply workers for the field. Since 1999, BiW has also carried out various international projects with 36 different countries.

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