On 29 and 30 November 2019, the bdla Committee Education and Training met in Würzburg.

The meeting was chaired for the first time by Marion Linke, who was elected by the bdla advisory board in April 2019 to the position of spokesperson for education.

The results of the bdla survey on the number of first-year students and graduates in landscape architecture courses were discussed in detail. All German universities with corresponding study programmes took part. In the surveyed period from 2013 to 2018, the numbers of first-year students and graduates fluctuated slightly, without a clear upward or downward trend being discernible.

Most recently (2018), the number of first-year students in the Bachelor's programme in Landscape Architecture nationwide was around 950, while the number of graduates was around 580. In the Master's programme, the number of first-year students was around 410, while the number of graduates was around 230. The dropout rate is around 1/3, and not all programmes are at full capacity.

And although the interest of society as a whole - especially in Generation Z - in "green topics" (including climate, biodiversity, sustainable mobility) has increased strongly since 2018, a "run" on the subject of landscape architecture has so far failed to materialise. Conclusions and theses will be developed by a sub-working group of the AK.

In the discussion on securing the next generation of professionals, the AK suggests surveying the need for skilled workers in planning offices or the number of vacancies. GALK had already conducted a survey at the beginning of 2019 on the number, age and qualifications of employees in the green space offices and on replacement requirements.

Further topics of the meeting were the professional qualification of foreign graduates on the German labour market, the international recognition of German degrees (Recognition by IFLA) and the discussion about the establishment of a new landscape architecture course at the University of Wuppertal.

Source: bdla association magazine "Landschaftsarchitekten" 1/2020

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