Switzerland already participated in EURO-BAC I and is pleased about the new project phase
EURO-BAC II. The reason is that a lot still remains to be done to make EURO-BAC known throughout our country and – if possible – to introduce it as well.
In EURO-BAC I, five vocational schools of trade and industry in German Switzerland evaluated nine standards. Now, in EURO-BAC II, we focused on vocational schools in the
Romandie and Ticino and on vocational schools with commercial orientation.
For optimally supporting the evaluation we placed at the schools' disposal co-ordinators in
the mother tongue of the respective linguistic region. In addition, the standards were
translated into the mother tongue of the respective region. The standards are now available in the three national official languages – German, French and Italian.
For improving comparability of the evaluation results within Switzerland each school evaluated the same four standards required for an examination in accordance with EURO-
BAC.
 Mother tongue
 Romandie = French
 Ticino = Italian
 German Switzerland = German
 Foreign language
 Romandie = German
 Ticino = French
 German Switzerland = English and/or French
 Mathematics
 Subject-specific standard
 Business for schools with commercial orientation
 Electronics for schools with technological orientation
Project Management Switzerland
Sigrid Friedrichs, Ländischstr. 107, CH-8706 Meilen, friedrichs @freesurf.ch
Dr. Emil Wettstein, Nordstr. 138, CH-8037 Zürich, mail@eWettstein.ch
SDK, Wülflingerstr. 17, 8400 Winterthur

EURO-BAC II – Report of Switzerland Page 2
In the Romandie four schools – one each from four different cantons – participated in the development and evaluation of the standards. Co-ordinator in the Romandie is Dr. Jean-
Pierre Gindroz, Headteacher CPLN Neuchâtel.
1.1 Vocational schools with commercial orientation:
EPCL – Lausanne (Guy Curtet, Headteacher)
EPC – Fribourg (Jean-Rodolphe Flückiger, Headteacher)
1.2 Vocational schools with technological orientation:
CEPTA – Genève-Petit Lancy (Henri Glatz, Headteacher)
CPLN – Neuchâtel (Pierre Gremaud, Headteacher)
1.3 The Standard Mother Tongue French was developed by the Vocational School with
Technological Orientation CEPTA in Geneva. Upon its completion at the beginning of
December 2000 the above schools carried out the evaluation.
In Ticino two schools participated in the evaluation of the standards. Co-ordinator is
Ermanno Demarchi, capoufficio della formazione industriale centro professionale.
2.1 Vocational School with Commercial Orientation in Locarno (Sergio Lafranchi,
Headteacher)
2.2 Vocational School with Technological Orientation in Trevano-Lugano (Francesco
Franchini, Headteacher)
The Standard Mother Tongue Italian was made available by the Italian project partner who had developed it.
A total of five vocational schools with commercial orientation participated in the evaluation of the standards mentioned in Point I – two vocational schools from the Romandie (see Point
I.1.1), one vocational school from Ticino (see Point I.2.1), and two from German
Switzerland:
3.1 Vocational School With Commercial Orientation Lucerne (Dr. Werner Lätsch,
Headteacher) and
Vocational School With Commercial Orientation Weinfelden (Esther Ott, Headteacher)
For time reasons only those schools were involved the implementation phase that had already evaluated standards in EURO-BAC I.
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EURO-BAC II – Report of Switzerland Page 3
Because of our three language regions and due to the fact that the vocational schools have differing subject orientations, etc., the introduction of EURO-BAC in Switzerland requires a fairly broad range of applications.
To be able to carry out the activities within the planned and required framework a broad financial support would be needed. The financial contribution made by the competent
Federal Office for EU Projects did not suffice even though it had been quite generous. The comparable payments to the EU partners were far below the budget planned by us – but also far below the performances we had planned. A visible sign for how big the interest of
Swiss political circles for the EURO-BAC project is that the Federal Office for Vocational
Training and Technology made the lacking financial means available.
The evaluation results for the four standards by the four participating schools in the
Romandie are now available. The short versions – about 1-3 pages each - have been translated into English. In addition, the co-ordinator Dr. Gindroz summarised the results for the Romandie (see Summary). As could be expected on the basis of the results of EURO-BAC
I, additional lessons are required also here to be able to adequately teach the material of most of the standards.
The relatively short timeframe from October 2000 to February 2001 did not suffice for a comprehensive evaluation. Therefore in particular the project partners from Ticino and
German Switzerland want to continue their evaluations until approx. mid April 2001 and deliver their results then.
According to information provided by our project partners from Ticino the Standard Mother
Tongue Italian is based on a much too small vocabulary and can therefore not be used for the evaluation as the Standard Mother Tongue Italian, but rather as the Standard Foreign
Language Italian.
A general clarification for EURO-BAC may be found in two more points.
 Regarding the Standard Foreign Language the following questions arise: Why don't the generally recognised Foreign Language Levels apply for EURO-BAC as well? Why has a new standard been introduced? In our opinion, this is not the best solution.
 The level of the Standard Mathematics is surely appropriate for the technological field, but what about the commercial field? Many young people whose biggest passion is not in the field of mathematics opt for the commercial orientation. And then, all of a sudden, they are being faced with higher mathematics there. The schools fear that this may have a deterrent effect on them. We think that lessons and exercises should be developed which take this fact into account and that are tailored to the requirements of the commercial field.
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EURO-BAC II – Report of Switzerland Page 4
Regarding the EURO-BAC implementation above all the GIB Liestal has to be mentioned which has already implemented the EURO-BAC and where it will be expanded.
In addition, the GIB Bern showed interest in implementing the EURO-BAC. But then it decided to wait for a nation-wide solution.
These decisions are surely influenced by the factor of the schools' "geographical position".
The GIB Liestal is located in the region bordering Germany and France, the GIB Bern in
Central Switzerland. The GIBs near the border see their task rather in taking on a pioneer role to offer their graduates opportunities of further development in the countries across the border.
Also in this project phase we informed groups of people interested in education and training
– important here: the political circles – on the EURO-BAC, its possibilities, and the progress made so far, both at home and abroad, in our newsletters, in talks, lectures, books, etc.
The Patronage Committee, which had been founded in the beginning of the Project and has already opened many important doors, provided much support in the dissemination of the
EURO-BAC issues and relevant information. The Committee, whose members include representatives of the major institutions in the fields of education and policy-making, is a body we can nothing but recommend to each project partner for a better and speedier enforcement of the EURO-BAC issues.
Transition Commission: The transition from the Vocational Matura ( to the Upper Secondary School Diploma ( it is intended to regulate the transition from the university-level higher education in the so-called Passarelle Commission (Transition
Commission). The first meeting of the Working Group established for this purpose was held at the beginning of February 2001, concrete proposals will be presented by the end of June
2001. These will provide detailed information on how the transition from the the Gymnasialmatur regulated in the future.
Berufsmatur
and how the university admission of
)
to the Gymnasialmatur
Berufsmatur
and
Berufsmatur
holders shall be
)
to
The Heads of the Vocational Training Offices in both Basle cantons want to achieve that all young people with the detour via
Berufsmatur
Fachhochschule,
get access to university-level education, because the
which is possible today, takes too long.
Basle University has shown its interest but wants to wait. It does not want a separate model but a nation-wide solution.
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EURO-BAC II – Report of Switzerland Page 5
Switzerland is interested in continuing with the EURO-BAC project. In this relatively short project duration – the decision to take part in the project did not come before September
2000 – we have made another big step forward, but the EURO-BAC has not become reality yet – with the exception of Liestal (Canton Basle). And we are making great efforts to achieve it. Therefore we are very interested in co-operating with interested project partners also after 30 June 2001.
Zurich, 13 March 2001 Sigrid Friedrichs
Project Management
726982615 / 21.03.2001