By the end of the 1980s, just over 60% of German 16–19 year olds took
apprenticeship-level qualifications compared with 27% in Britain18 (Prais
1995: 22). Prais makes a further division between a ‘higher’, technician level,
involving more full-time training, and a ‘lower’, craftsman level, trained in
large part at the workplace, because the difference between Britain and
Germany lies entirely at the craftsman or workplace-based qualification level.
Both countries have 7% of the workforce trained to technician level, but 57%
of the German workforce is trained to craftsman level compared with 20%
of the British19 (Prais 1995: 18). As far as technicians are produced by and
work within the large-company sector, the difference between the countries
emphasises that technical training is a particular problem for small and
medium-sized firms, where the free-rider effect is most likely to operate. These
differences in raw numbers beg the question of how the institution is organised
in Germany.