An encounter with the Swiss Education Minister.

Not Swiss Chocolates, But Swiss Education!!

Earlier, whenever I heard of Switzerland, all that came to my mind was chocolates (yum yum!!), Alps and the best of summer camps. But it wasn’t until an encounter with the Swiss Educationist and a Swiss education Minister Ms. Sandra Hutterli who had visited the Aditi Mallya International School on 9th of October , that I got to know about Switzerland’s unique and well-thought education system. It was the occasion of completion of 60 years of India and Switzerland’s friendship and the year of Science and Education of Switzerland Year, that Ms. Hutterli chose to grace. It proved to be a great opportunity to open the window of prejudice and let the light of opportunities in.

The conference started with Roshan, Karthik and I going all around the school to find the Conference room! To celebrate our discovery then, we snacked and found ourselves places in a classroom which was apparently the conference venue. We went in with an impression that what would it be about?.........middle school, high schools, colleges and Universities in Switzerland! But as soon as the key address came to an end we were prepared for some new facts to vibrate our eardrums (so... better be awake!:)) . Firstly, we were told that as small a country as Switzerland is divided into 26 Cantons(states)!Every Canton is responsible for every child’s education within the Canton, making their literacy rate pretty high. Secondly, Switzerland has 4 national languages ;French, German, Italian and Romansh! (Imagine, school there is called ‘centro Scolastic’, ‘Primaschule’, ‘ecole’ and ‘casa da scola’). These two facts make Switzerland a land of educational opportunities, since the cantons support students so much, and also a slightly difficult place to survive in due to the language problems.

However, due to the large no. of immigrants, the students of India wouldn’t be the lone foreigners around and will find Ubringe, Turks, Ex-jagoslavians, Portugese and Spanish as well!

So.... here is how the Swiss education system goes. The 11th and 12th graders from India would be Swiss Upper Secondary students. Thus they either would have an option to attend the special middle schools, which are very popular, or go for Matura schools which come with the option of full time studies or Professional Matura schools which pay special attention to after school Apprenticeship for early experience. After Matura and High school one is eligible to go to University. Switzerland has brilliant universities, Universities of Applied Sciences, Federeal Institutes of Technology and research Institutes.

You must be wondering by now that usually, English management and Economic education, Indian technological education, Australian Medical Education are the famous ones, but what about Swiss education’s Strength? Actually all the big car company’s of Germany that we hear about are full of swiss people designing their most minute ofall parts . Besides who hasn’t heard about the Swiss watches? They are all about intrigue technology and design. Thus, the Swiss technology education is qute popular and specialized. The federal institutes of technology have even yielded Nobel Prize winners! For Management patrons the IMD at Lausanne comes in the top five management colleges in the world! For more information on the best of universities for Law, Economics and Humanities feel free to Google.

For applying directly to Universities, you need a course or diploma in at least one of the national languages of Switzerland and you need to appear for the entrance test of the university and produce your previous 3 yrs’ results in the subjects you’ve been doing. The Swiss embassy gives scholarships every-year. You can do Bachelors’, masters’ or Master Of Advanced Studies from Switzerland which is assessed on the European Credit transfer System. However, Medical studies aren’t open to foreign students. So, I hope this article of mine has been successful in advertising the earlier-in-dark Swiss education, which was exactly the aim of this Conference. I had a great time exploring all these opportunities. I can already imagine myself in the lap of Alps!!!

Gauri Billore,
Grade 10 ICSE