Summary
Vocational education, includes related article
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Choosing lanes changing lanes.
In Switzerland, around two-thirds of the youngsters who finish their compulsory nine years of school become apprentices. But don't let the medieval sound of that fool you. It's true that the apprenticeship program in Switzerland dates back to the Middle Ages, but today it's part of a complex vocational-education program involving everything from remedial job training to university diplomas.
During the past decade, the Swiss professional-education system has been overhauled and modernized in response to several recently passed federal laws, and the revisions won't be complete until at least 2010. Despite all the changes, however, the backbone of the system remains in place: a well-supervised combination of on-the-job training and regular classroom learning. This is still considered the best way to teach young people a profession, whether it's in business management, nursing, automotive engineering, or baking. For hundreds of years, young Swiss were trained in their occupations by masters, who were authorized to take apprentices by their trade guilds. The guilds eventually evolved into modem trade associations, which continued to be responsible for young workers, Not until 1930 was a federal law passed to create national standards for apprenticeships in most professions. One of the requirements introduced by this law was vocational education in the classroom as well as on the job. Today most apprentices spend one-to-two days a week at vocational school, learning a combination of subjects: academic, like math and foreign languages; money-related, like bookkeeping and business law; and practical, like chemistry for cooks and physics for electronics specialists. The remaining three days a week are usually spent at a bank, advertising agency, plumbing fi...See the full content of this document
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