For many years in almost all European Union member states the transition from school to work has been of great concern. Unemployment rates of up to more than 30% among school leavers are indicators of precarious transition processes with high personal, social and economic costs. Young learning disabled persons have especially dim chances to enter the world of work successfully because of their limited competences and reluctance of enterprises to hire them. Therefore the project VAmB (www.vamb-projekt.de) tries to improve career chances of learning disabled persons by developing their competences through dovetailing in-company training on the job with supportive training in vocational rehabilitation institutes. This so called “Verzahnte Ausbildung” (dovetailed training) combines the work of the pedagogical staff of rehabilitation institutions and the training staff of the participating private companies. The whole process was evaluated by a team of scientists of the university of Hamburg. The study will terminate in April 2009. In educational research the use of assessment-centers is not very common. In general researchers prefer standardised tests analysing competences. The advantage of assessment-centers is the reference to competencies extending up to a wide range of professional activities, whereas standardised tests examine domain specific knowledge. But it must be observed that the reliability of assessment-centers depends mainly on the quality of trained observers. In the data-analysis statistic measures have to be chosen which are sensitive to indicate changes within the persons examined.

To find out whether the training was successful in improving work-relevant competences the research design arranged for two times of measurement, one before the phase of in-company training on the job and another one about one year later. Test-items comprised tasks from the Assessment-Center Profil-AC (www.profil-ac.de). The test system Profil-AC was developed for young disabled persons to measure mainly their social and methodical competences needed for successful vocational careers. About 160 adolescents took part in the tests. Trained observers assessed the quality of their performance. Additional qualitative interviews were conducted, both with the tested adolescents and pedagogical staff, to identify the key factors of influence nurturing positive and permanent development of vocational competences.

First results show that only a small group of participants improved their vocational competences during training. The main conclusion, supported by qualitative interviews of disabled adolescents and pedagogical staff, is that variation of tasks and special support during in-company training are necessary to support the process of informal learning. Under these conditions measured professional competences show a sustainable improvement. Results of the study show directions of training which can improve learning disabled young persons’ chances of participation in working life thus materialising on Lisbon and Stockholm goals of the European Council to improve living conditions in the European Union.