The system of vocational education is perhaps the most important component of the German model, and is still very prevalent in the German educational system. In Germany, there is a much heavier emphasis on apprenticeships for skilled positions, taught by expert worker-instructors. It has been made possible through long-term politics, focusing on establishing stronger links between the dual vocational education and training system and institutes of higher education, on improving integration into vocational training through basic skills and permeability and on establishing national coverage of branch-specific regional initial and continuing training centres.[3]