This week, education secretary Damian Hinds is visiting Germany and the Netherlands on a fact-finding trip to learn about their renowned systems of technical education. And he seems to be particularly smitten with the German system: "Technical and vocational training in Germany is high calibre, combining classroom instruction and on-the-job training," he writes. "Critically, it is not perceived as being less prestigious than university, with near half of young Germans taking this route, often through apprenticeships.”

Fair enough. But the German system has its troubles. And I should know - that's the system I was educated in. A particular concern is that much of a child’s educational future is decided at the age of 10. A decision is made whether they will go to a more vocational secondary school that guides them towards an apprenticeship, or a Gymnasium that prepares them for university. About a third of children attend the latter.

How can you possibly know where your strengths or talents lie at 10? Inevitably, parental influence is a massive factor here, and official statistics show that of the children that go to Gymnasium, two-thirds have parents who did the same.

'Striking differences'

There are some very striking differences between the systems. Recently, I tried to work out with some German friends what major reforms of the German education system we could remember in our lifetime. We managed three: one of them, a wide-ranging reform of the way words are spelled, is still called the “new spelling”, despite being more than a decade old.

Consider how many changes to the exams and qualification system there have been in the UK in the last decade. Germans have faith in the system because the routes and qualifications are established and embedded and generations of young people have progressed along them and succeeded.

The content might have changed and been adjusted, but, by and large, an apprenticeship has remained an apprenticeship since the days young Germans would dress in the traditional apprentice uniform and travel Germany on foot, and the Abitur has remained, well, the Abitur, the qualification you need to attend university.

But the most fundamental difference between the systems, to me, is one of perception and cultural approach. And that is that unlike in Germany, in the UK, any further education route is, and traditionally has been, inextricably linked to some level of failure.

You have failed to obtain the required number of A level passes – why not consider colleges? They are great, promise.

Your performance indicates you may struggle to pass your GCSEs – have you considered a vocational route? If you are a young person heading straight towards five good A level or Higher passes, chances someone will approach you in school and suggest you do a vocational course alongside your studies are, anecdotal evidence suggests, reasonably slim. It increases significantly, however, if you happen to be viewed by any of the responsible adults around you as at risk of not achieving those passes, or struggling in any other way in school.

'Patronising'

This is why I find public debate around “parity of esteem” so patronising to those in vocational routes. While this link between failure and FE exists, how are we expecting anyone to believe that sort of narrative?

Part of the reason this does not happen in Germany is that by the time actual careers choices are made, young Germans have already been split into groups. What I see at the most unfair part of the German system suddenly becomes a strength, certainly for those who feel the right choice was made for them.

Because they are split into different school forms at 10, there is a natural progression route where you find yourself among a reasonably homogenous peer group heading towards the same outcome. At a vocational school, you may well aspire to continuing your school education afterwards and attaining your Abitur, but the common outcome is an apprenticeship. And the measures of failure and success are the kind of apprenticeship you are able to secure after your exams.

Culture matters. It is undoubtedly true that apprenticeships in Germany carry a level of prestige we can only dream of here – and some of that is historic. There continues to be real status in the “Meister” exam – the incredibly complex and difficult exam process traditionally at the end of German apprenticeships.

There is no shame in taking a vocational route in Germany, and no sense of failure associated with it. I am no clearer on how we get rid of that in the UK than any policy makers seem to be; importing an imperfect, foreign education system certainly isn’t the solution. Maybe it is simply a matter of time.

Among my peers at Gymnasium, the envy was palpable when we watched our Realschule peers transition from school to work (three years before we left school), start earning and become adults in ways we could only dream of. And maybe something similar will happen here, if and when the reformed apprenticeship system beds in. In the meantime, role models will remain key. We will need some evidence, some real young people, for whom the system worked and who ended up successful and thriving to inspire others.

Julia Belgutay is FE reporter for Tes