Siemens as global technology leader in automation is supporting colleges of technology, vocational training colleges and universities to adapt the practical education in automation to the digital age through the “Siemens Automation Cooperates with Education (SCE)” program. For this, SCE defined a new Industrie 4.0 structure for education covering the basics of automation technologies (e.g. PLC and programming languages), automation and communication technologies and CAx and cloud technologies. In this paper, we discuss the structure and share best practices of cooperation with selected educational institutions in Germany.