Brief Review

Swiss Education Overview

Swiss public schools are held to a very high standard, making the Swiss some of the best-educated people in the world. The majority of children (95%) attend state-run schools. In the international PISA student assessment test of 2006, a triennial worldwide test of 15-year-old schoolchildren's scholastic performance, Swiss public school children obtained better results than did those in Swiss private schools. Local, publicly funded schools play an important integrating role by bringing together children of different social, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. As a country with four national languages, Switzerland attaches great importance to being multilingual. During their compulsory schooling, Swiss children study not only their own mother tongue (German, French, Italian or Romansh), but one of the other national languages, and English as well.

According to the Swiss Federation of Private Schools, about 100.000 Swiss and foreign students attend one of the 260 private schools in the country. In general, private schools are totally independent from the government. Study fees are comparatively high, and their standards, curriculum and academic prerequisites can vary greatly from institute to institute. Private schools are sometimes also supported by the government, which then has an influence on how the school is run. The Swiss authorities therefore recognize some diplomas, while others are not. New immigrants to Switzerland often choose to start their children in one of the private international schools to get their children up to speed with the local language, and then transition them into the local public school.