(FORTUNE Magazine) – A West German advertisement for Lufthansa airlines pictures a middle-aged mechanic and four young apprentices examining an airplane engine below the tag line ''Whoever wants to fly high needs a solid foundation.'' The message: Companies that invest in the training of young people produce better workers -- and higher-quality products. Each year about 500,000 West German companies provide on-the-job training for 1.8 million teenage apprentices -- a group comprising 6% of the work force -- at a cost of roughly $10 billion. In the U.S., apprentices make up a mere 0.3% of workers. Says Janet Carlson, assistant superintendent of vocational education for Washington State: ''We are committed to training people for college. They are committed to training people for work.'' Roughly 70% of German high school students study a vocation. Based on their performance in elementary grades, most youngsters are sent to one of three types of secondary schools: Gymnasium, or college prep, which continues through grade 13; Realschule, a middle-level school that readies tenth-grade students for apprenticeships or further technical training; and Hauptschule, a lower-level school that prepares youngsters for apprenticeships that begin after ninth or tenth grade. The system is rigid, but not many students fall through the cracks: Fewer than 10% leave without a school or apprenticeship certificate. Apprenticeships generally run for three years, and combine three or four days of on-the-job training with one or two days of classroom instruction at a public vocational school. Wages average $400 a month -- less than journeyman pay. The government sets standards -- curriculum guidelines and examination requirements -- for 430 occupations. Companies are not obliged to hire the apprentices they train, nor are apprentices required to stick around once their contracts expire. So why do companies bother? Tradition, for one thing. The German apprenticeship system dates back to the Middle Ages. In addition, German companies say that it offers the following advantages: Students learn good work habits on up-to-date equipment at a young age; employers train workers for future openings; and companies and students have three years to decide if the match is a good one. Hewlett-Packard's West German subsidiary takes in about 80 new apprentices a year, at an annual cost of about $5,000 each, and eventually hires almost all of them. Says Stephen Hamilton, a professor at Cornell University who is writing a book comparing job training in the U.S. and Germany: ''There is an unchallenged belief in Germany that one of their main sources of international competitiveness is the apprenticeship program. They could be wrong, but they're not willing to abandon it and see what happens.''