Apply for an education voucher

Source: BUS Rheinland-Pfalz

If you are unemployed and want to continue your education, you can get an education voucher under certain conditions.

With an education voucher, the Federal Employment Agency can cover the costs of your further education. Before you receive an education voucher, the employment agency will check with you whether further education is necessary for you. You do not have a legal claim to an education voucher.
You can redeem the education voucher at an educational institution of your choice if it is approved for further education funding.
The further education measure itself must also be approved and fit the education voucher. The education voucher specifies, among other things:

the educational objective,
the duration until the educational goal is reached,
the contents of the qualification,
the regional area of application and
the period of validity in which the education voucher must be redeemed and participation must have begun.

The education voucher is generally valid at your place of residence and at places that you can reach daily from home. The Employment Agency can also pay the necessary travel costs.
If your unemployment can be ended without further training or if there are other, more suitable instruments, your employment agency will suggest other possibilities.
If the Employment Agency makes you job placement offers during the course, you must take advantage of them, even if you are completing further training.
Even if you are entitled to unemployment benefit II, you can also ask for an education voucher. The contact person is then the job centre. However, there is no legal entitlement to this.

You can only ask for an education voucher in a personal interview with your employment agency.

In a personal interview, it will be clarified whether you need additional qualifications in order to find work again.
Your counsellor will then check whether you meet the requirements for funding and will usually issue you with the education voucher directly during the counselling interview.
You choose a suitable course yourself and register.
The education provider confirms your acceptance into the course on the education voucher and informs the Employment Agency. The Employment Agency then checks whether the course fits the education voucher and whether you meet the entry requirements.
You can then start the further education course, but you should start applying for suitable job offers during the further education course.
If you become ill during the course, you must inform both the Employment Agency and the training provider.
Shortly before or at the latest after the further training, you will determine the further steps of your job search with your employment agency.

As a rule, you must have been employed for at least three years and have taken part in counselling by the Employment Agency.

An education voucher can be issued to you if

the further education is necessary to end your unemployment or to avert a threatening unemployment,
the further training was determined in the interview to be the "most suitable measure",
the training is likely to avoid or end your unemployment,
if you have tried to a "considerable extent" to end your unemployment yourself,
the training course and the training provider are approved, and
the course you have chosen will enable you to achieve the educational objective you have previously set with your employment agency.

Apply for an education voucher

Process flow

Requirements

Which documents are required?

What are the fees?

What deadlines do I have to pay attention to?

Processing duration

Legal basis

Appeal