[Zahlmeister4]

Getting that extra education may make more sense for trades like electricians, it makes zero sense for salespeople or cooks or house painters or hair stylists and yet all these people are forced into three years of underpaid labor and crappy government schooling.

Even if the German system was better (which it isn't), it makes you wonder how all the other countries in the world are going by without it. German workers are relatively underpaid even after going through the rites, that's what makes us competitive - not the fact that our workers have more skills than they need.

> so that if they choose to become Meister to be their own boss they don't need to learn all the extra stuff

That makes no sense. Most never become a "Meister", but even those that do could learn that stuff when and if they need it.