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EDUCATION

Swiss apprentices take second place in World Skills competition

The Swiss team have come second at a global competition where young apprentices show off their skills in areas ranging from baking to welding.

Published: 20 October 2017 11:05 CEST
Swiss apprentices take second place in World Skills competition
A competitor in the World Skills competition. Photo: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP

The Swiss scooped 20 medals – 11 gold, six silver and three bronze – at the World Skills 2017 event in Abu Dhabi.

It is the best result ever by Swiss competitors, who came second to China.

The 11 gold medals were awarded for cabinet making, autobody repair, health and social care, bakery, IT solutions, heavy vehicle maintenance, electrical installations, industrial control, web design, restaurant service, and plumbing and heating.

The Swiss leader, Christine Davatz, told the SDA news agency she was “incredibly proud” of the whole team. The success of the team was  “historic, remarkable and suprising”.

Davatz said the competition had increased greatly in the past ten years.

Unlike some other teams from Asia and South America who trained in a focused way for the event, the Swiss side had just practised in their spare time after completing their apprenticeships, she said.

Switzerland’s previous best at the event was 19 medals in 2003.

Thirty-eight young Swiss took part in World Skills, representing 36 trades. In total there were 1,300 participants from 58 countries.

Apprenticeships have a long tradition in Switzerland and are deeply rooted in society and the Swiss education system.

The Swiss apprenticeship system is seen as a model to copy by other countries, including the United States.

 

EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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