EUX's history: when the journeyman certificate got a higher education diploma

EUX—the combination of a journeyman certificate and a higher education entrance qualification—is a new education. But it rests on one of the very oldest ways to learn a trade: apprenticeship, where the young person learns the trade by working together with a master. To understand EUX, one must know the long line from the guild's journeymen to today's vocational education.

§Guild time: apprenticeship and journeyman certificate

In the Middle Ages and far into more recent times, the craft was organised in guilds. The person who wanted to learn a trade came as an apprentice to a master, worked their way up over years and could finally give their journeyman piece and receive a journeyman certificate. The guilds guarded the craft's quality and determined who could practise it. The learning was entirely practical — you learned by doing, side by side with the master and journeymen in the workshop.

This apprenticeship had a great strength: the young person learned the trade in reality with real tasks and real responsibility. But it also had a weakness — the written and theoretical side was rarely cultivated. You learned to do not necessarily to understand why.

§The technical schools bring in the theory

When industrialization accelerated in the 1800s it became clear that pure apprenticeship was no longer enough. Trade associations and guilds established technical schools — the oldest Det tekniske Institut in Copenhagen already in 1843 — where apprentices received instruction in drawing, arithmetic and trade theory. The instruction took place in the evening and on Sundays so the apprentice could still attend work in the workshop during the day.

Hereby the foundation was laid for what later became called alternating education: an education that alternates between practical training in a company and theoretical teaching at a school. It is precisely this principle that both ordinary vocational education and EUX are based on today.

§Vocational education is being modernised.

Throughout the 1900s, apprenticeships were gradually systematized with laws regulating apprenticeship, wages and responsibilities, and strengthening the school part. In the 1970s came the vocational basic educations (efg) as an attempt to modernize and broaden vocational education, and later reforms brought education together in the structure with foundation and main program we know today. But one challenge kept returning: vocational educations gave a trade, but rarely direct access to higher education. The one who chose the craft often closed the academic door behind them.

§How EUX came to be: experiments around 2010 and the reform in 2015

It was precisely this door that EUX was supposed to open. The first EUX programs started as pilots around 2010-2011: the idea was to let talented practically minded young people take their vocational education and at the same time bring general subjects up to high school level so they got both journeyman's certificate and study competence. You no longer had to choose between your hands and your head.

The major breakthrough came with the vocational education reform that took effect in August 2015. The reform was passed by a broad majority in Parliament to address dropout declining enrollment and lack of prestige in vocational education. With the reform EUX was extended to far more trades — both commercial (trade and office) and a long list of technical crafts — and thus made a fixed recognized part of the Danish education system.

§Timeline: EUX's roots and emergence

§EUX i dag

Today EUX is an established path for those who want both a craft in their hands and an open door to further education. The education combines the oldest — the apprenticeship's practical training and the guild era's journeyman certificate — with the academic level that was once reserved for high school. The tools are modern the legislation detailed and the professions elevated to high school level but the very idea is an old dream come true: the one who learns a craft does not need to close the academic door behind them.

“EUX gave the journeyman certificate a higher education diploma—thus uniting the practical apprenticeship of the guild era with the academic education of the secondary school in one education.”