If you have the young on your side, you own the future. The GDR was well aware of that and made great efforts to provide vocational and career guidance to its young people.
In 1958, it introduced what amounted to a sandwich course for secondary school pupils. Known as "UTP", or “Unterrichtstag in der Produktion”, this involved pupils from years seven to ten spending whole days in a production facility, where they were introduced to real occupations in practical learning units and received vocational training.
From the late 1950s, there was also a large corporate vocational school at Thale, which offered a wide range of vocational training: from steel workers, rolling mill workers and enamellers, via metalworkers, electricians and draughtsmen, to skilled workers in office communication or qualified electricians – there was hardly any career you couldn’t pursue at Thale!
At the end of the 1960s, 800 apprentices were being trained on the Thale site and sharing accommodation in the newly built trainees’ residential hostel.
All depictions: © Hüttenmuseum Thale
