Austin, TX

A sister city, that is, and that city is Koblenz, Germany. I was thinking the other day about American schools and how little there was on offer for school kids who opted not to go to college. I got to thinking about apprenticeship programs and I wondered if Austin had any such programs. That led me to a search which is how I became aware that Austin’s sister city is Koblenz. Coincidentally, I went to High School in Germany. In fact, I spent a good deal of my life living overseas, primarily in Germany and later in England. Both countries have excellent apprentice programs, though England has struggled to keep theirs alive. In Germany however, apprenticeship programs have not only survived, they’ve thrived.

It seems common sense to me that not everyone will go to college. What do you do when you leave High School if you can’t afford or have no desire to go to college? While you could grab a job at McDonald’s it makes a lot more sense to me to learn a trade. Apparently during the dotcom boom, with high tech skills in demand and people to fill them at a low, Austin city council decided to explore Germany’s apprenticeship program with an eye toward building something similar in Austin.

In 1994, Mr. Karl Jürgen Wilbert, its Executive Director, made Austin an extraordinary offer: up to 15 recent high school graduates from Austin were invited to Koblenz to participate in an accelerated 2 to 3 year apprenticeship program with Koblenz area businesses.

I see no further mention of the program, however, which leaves me to wonder what ever happened to the 15 students who went to Germany? Was the program successful?

As it turns out, Austin actually has 10 sister cities:

Who knew?

Austin, Koblez, Germany, Sister, City, Cities, Apprentice, Apprenticeship, Program, Programs