Switzerland | CEDEFOP - European Union

Switzerland is well above EU averages with regard to several key indicators in education and training and has exceeded EU 2020 targets in a number of areas. Tertiary education attainment is the second highest (56.1% in 2019, compared to the EU average of 40.3); employment of recent graduates at 87.9% in 2019 exceeds the EU average of 80.9%; adult participation in learning was 32.3% in 2019, also one of the highest in Europe; and early leaving from education is among the lowest (4.4% in 2019), well below the EU average of 10.2% (European Commission, 2020).

In the global PISA education ranking in reading, mathematics and science, the Swiss 15-year-olds' underachievement in mathematics and science is well below the EU average and close to EU average in reading (OECD, 2018).

Swiss vocational and professional qualifications, also referred to as vocational and professional education and training (VPET), enjoys considerable prestige and labour market relevance. Around two-thirds of all young people coming out of compulsory school opt for vocational education and training (SERI, 2020). However, many of its qualifications are relatively unknown in other countries, potentially hindering Swiss citizens seeking employment abroad.

Switzerland sees the link to European qualifications frameworks – both the European qualifications framework (EQF) and the qualifications framework in the European higher education area (QF-EHEA) – as an opportunity to strengthen the transparency and comparability of its national qualifications in a European and wider international context. In 2009 Switzerland adopted a national qualifications framework for higher education – Qualifikationsrahmen für den schweizerischen Hochschulbereich (NQR-CH-HS/NQF CH-HS) ([1] NQF CH-HS ) in line with the Bologna framework. A national qualification framework (NQF) for vocational and professional qualifications – Nationaler Qualifikationsrahmen für Abschlüsse der Berufsbildung (NQR-CH-BB/NQF-VPQ) ([2] Also referred to in English as NQF-VPET.) – was adopted on 27 August 2014 ([3] Government of Switzerland (2014). Verordnung überden nationalen Qualifikationsrahmen für Abschlüsse der Berufsbildung V-NQR-BB [Regulation on the NQF for VET qualifications]. https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/20140910/index.html) and put in force from 1 October 2014. This latter framework is explicitly oriented to the EQF and introduces an eight-level structure defined through knowledge, skills and competences.

The framework was referenced to the EQF in May 2015 (SERI, 2015).