Swiss education system: What is new?
 |  | There are reform processes on all levels of the education system at present. A fundamental political goal in education in coming years is to secure the competitive position of Switzerland and to increase mobility in education. |
Reform areas
Specifically, this means:
Specifically, this means:
 | to make the Swiss educational system as a whole more transparent and manageable, the Confederation and the cantons are establishing a national education monitoring system where information concerning the education system is systematically collected and processed. The education monitoring serves as the basis for the educational planning and educational policy decisions, as well as for purposes of reporting and public discussion. |
| to harmonise compulsory schooling by specifying educational standards for designated subject areas at designated times, and examining these on a regular basis. In addition, important benchmarking figures of compulsory schooling such as earlier enrolment and a more flexible enrolment structure are defined. |
| to intensively encourage and promote language skills where the language courses (local native language, other national language, English) are coordinated country wide, as well as being introduced at an earlier stage and evaluated. |
| to allow all adolescents to graduate to the upper secondary level and to optimise the transfer from the compulsory schools to the upper secondary level. |
| the application of information and communication technologies as work tools for the teachers at all educational levels and to further support the teachers. |
| professionalism of the teachers through optimised recruitment and professional training as well as the encouragement of the expansion of the professional perspectives in their professional field. |
| through an integrated university legislation and the reorganisation of the university landscape, with the introduction of the two-stage course of studies with Bachelor and Master Degrees in accordance with the Bologna declaration. |
Legal foundation
The following task fields can be mentioned concerning the legal foundation:
The following task fields can be mentioned concerning the legal foundation:
| With the introduction of the new vocational education law (effective since 01/01/2004), the tasks of implementation are now under way. |
| The new regulation of the financial responsibility and the equalisation of burdens between the Confederation and the cantons (NFA) leads to, amongst other aspects, organisational and financial changes in the range of the special schools and the nature of scholarships. In the range of the special schools, the cantons assume the exclusive organisational and financial responsibility of the special schools for children and adolescents up to their 20th birthday. In the financing of educational support , the cantons assume the complete responsibility and financing for the educational support up to and with the upper secondary level. |
| In 2004 a concept for the new educational constitution (article for the scope of education) was presented and then subsequently revised. The bill was debated in parliament in autumn 2005. The referendum is planned to be held for the end of 2006. A central concern is the strengthening of the cooperation between the Confederation and the cantons. The constitutional text specifies different areas where a uniform solution must be brought about for Switzerland as a whole: the beginning of the school year, length of the educational levels, transfer between the educational levels, recognition of all qualifications. If the cantons cannot reach a uniform solution among each other - or the cantons with the Confederation - the Confederation can regulate these important issues alone. The new educational constitution also will also contain a new university article. |
| A bill is planned that, with a solid constitutional foundation and together with, the Swiss University Landscape Switzerland 2008 project, should provide a uniform legal basis for universities in Switzerland (ETH, cantonal universities, universities of applied sciences (FH)). The new university legislation is planned for 2008. |
| Further information on the educational reforms |
