Vocational education is the most widespread post-compulsory educational path in Switzerland. After finishing their compulsory education, around two thirds of young people choose a vocational education programme (a third opt for a general education school). In the first half of the 1990s, there were signs of a trend away from vocational education in favour of general education schools. But this trend now appears to have been driven by the economic cycle: the recession resulted in a marked contraction in the number of available apprenticeship positions.
In the second half of the 1990s, the number of student enrolments in general education schools stagnated but grew rapidly in vocational education..Since 2002, the number of vocational education enrolments has declined once again, while enrolments in general education have risen.
Education and sciencePanorama
Panorama is an overview of important developments and contexts in the field of "Education and Science" - a document with text and charts, available in french and german for download in PDF format.
If you are not looking for a general overview but mainly for the most up-to-date figures and detailed data, you will have to move to the internet pages in german or french. There you will find details in the rubrics for the individual sub-themes in the navigation on the left.
The Panorama «Education and science»
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Bildung und Wissenschaft: Panorama (xx-d-00.01-pan-15) Bundesamt für Statistik BFS |
2012 |
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From the content
Further key figures in this Panorama
- Expenditure on education: In 2007, the public sector in Switzerland invested CHF 27 billion in education. In international comparison, Switzerland's expenditure on education was 5.5% of GDP. This was above the OECD average of 5.3% but below Denmark, the leading nation in this area, which spent 8.0% of GDP. Switzerland's rank is significantly better if one considers expenditure per capita.
- Lower secondary education: The 298,000 pupils in the lower secondary education represent 20% of all school pupils. In all, there are approximately 1900 lower secondary schools. They tend to be bigger than primary schools because of the greater degree of centralisation at this level.
- Universities: The number of university enrolments (cantonal universities and federal institutes of technology, ETH) has risen by 30% since 1990, reaching 18,100 in the winter semester 2008/09; according to student number projections, it will increase to between 18,000 and 20,000 by 2018.
- Competencies at the end of compulsory schooling: The international PISA survey which was conducted in 2006 showed that 15-year-olds in Switzerland achieved good test scores in all test areas (sciences, mathematics and reading). Moreover, the results were above the OECD average.
- Research and Development (R&D): Total expenditure on R&D in Switzerland rose from CHF 8.3 billion in 1989 to CHF 16.3 billion in 2008.
Last updated: 15.06.2010