Educational Leaves
If you work in Germany, please note that some of our workshops are certified as a “Bildungsurlaub”. The “Bildungsurlaub” is a paid educational leave – A kind of extra vacation that lets you leave work to get professional training while still getting paid.
Legal Requirements
If you would like to get an educational leave from your employer, you must…
Work for the same employer for at least 6 months
Apply at least 6 weeks before your educational leave
The course must be certified as a “Bildungsurlaub” in your state
Educational leaves are a right. Your employer must allow them, but there are times exceptions. Your employer can refuse your educational leave if…
The company has under 10-20 employees
Your vacation conflicts with the business operations
Over 10% of the employees are taking a Bildungsurlaub this year
You can find more general information on this topic here (external link)
Finding our Certified Workshops
If you want to know which of our workshops are certified as paid educational leaves, go to our programme (in German) and click on the “Nur Bildungsurlaube” (only educational leaves) option. All the events that show up are available either as educational leaves and also as regular workshops.
Currently, most workshops are in German, but non-fluent speakers can often participate. If you are not yet fluent but would like to join, write to us so we will try to help out!
All our paid educational leaves are certified, at least, in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg & Saarland. If you work in any of these, we can send you a certificate and the timetable, which you can then submit to your employer. We also generally try to certify our educational leaves in the states of Hessen and Berlin. You can see in which states the workshop has been certified by going to the workshop (“Zum Seminar”) and reading the description.
Are you interested in an educational leave, but work in another German state? In this case, we have 2 options:
Some employers will accept educational leaves that are not certified in their state if the workshop has been accepted in others. We can send you a written confirmation saying that this educational leave has been certified in at least 3 other federal states.
If your employer wants to have the official recognition in the state you're working at, we can apply for it together with our partners from the Willie-Eichler Akademie. In this case, we’ll need to send the documents at least 3 months before the workshop.
We hope this helps. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!