Pandemic pushes digitalisation in Swiss education

The Covid-19 pandemic has left its mark on the education system. Keystone / Laurent Gillieron

The Covid-19 pandemic was a challenge for the Swiss education system, but also opened new opportunities in the digital sphere, says the Swiss Education Report 2023.

“The temporary ban on face-to-face teaching in particular created challenges for the players in the education system, for instance with regard to lesson design and structuring,” says this reportExternal link published on Tuesday. “However, the sudden switch to digital, remote teaching also opened up numerous opportunities and provided a possibility to take an in-depth look at new questions such as: were there observable effects on the performance of school pupils, apprentices and students?”

The report by the Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education (SKBF) has been published periodically since 2010, but this one was delayed for a year, notably to allow investigation on the short-term effects of the pandemic on the education system in 2020 and 2021. According to the SKBF website, it “provides data and information from statistics, research and administration on the entire education system in Switzerland from pre-school to continuing education and serves as a basis for the formulation of the joint education goals of the Confederation and the cantons”.

According to the 2023 report, half of all adults aged 25 to 34 in Switzerland now have a tertiary degree (university or higher vocational education). The rate of tertiary graduates continues to rise and exceeds the OECD average.

The document was handed in Bern on Tuesday to the Swiss economics and education minister, Guy Parmelin, and the president of the Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK), Silvia Steiner. In an initial assessment, Parmelin and Steiner said that the common political objectives for the Swiss education system are being achieved in the long term, including that 95% of young people will obtain a secondary school diploma.