The central thesis of this paper is as follows: German cooperation in vocational education and training is based on the concept of qualifying people according to the German skilled worker model. In Germany the interest of the industrial-technical world of work focusses on the skilled worker as a fully trained specialist. Since the middle of the eighties the image of the skilled worker has changed, among other things as a consequence of increasing globalization, European unification, the German Unity and economic aspects; however, it has not dissolved. Efforts towards deregulation and flexibilization have been integrated both into the job and into vocational and further training. Germany has been cooperating with a number of donor countries (developing countries) in technical cooperation in vocational education and training for five decades. While the implementation of the German vocational training system was an explicit goal at the beginning, this changed more and more in favour of concepts adapting to the conditions in the respective countries. The change in Germany was accompanied by a change in the promotion concept of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation resulting in giving up strict orientation towards the implementation of a dual system showing the features of the German vocational training system. The example of cooperation in vocational education and training between Germany and China puts the role the skilled work plays in the strategy and in the projects in concrete terms. It encounters general conditions of a reform society which leads to radical changes in almost all spheres of society. Thus the system of vocational education and training is also subject to changes in the People´s Republic of China.