Continuity and change in the Swiss vocational training system

Abstract

The Swiss vocational training regime developed as an employer-dominated apprenticeship system with trade unions being of minor importance for the development and reform of training policy. This chapter analyses the actor constellations and the ensuing division of labour between the state, employers and trade unions in the provision of vocational training. On the basis of an in-depth analysis of the development of the Swiss training system from its formative phase until the present day, it also explores patterns of institutional change in this subsystem of the Swiss political economy. Studying the Swiss vocational education and training (VET) system is an exciting enterprise for comparative politics for three reasons. First, several studies of comparative training research, as well as of the OECD, consider the Swiss training system to be more profitable (Dionisius et al. 2008: 1; Rauner 2009: 284-5) as well as more innovative (OECD 2008: 8) than that of its direct neighbour, Germany. Second, although the Swiss system resembles those in other coordinated market economies (CMEs) like Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark (Busemeyer and Trampusch 2011), it exhibits some interesting peculiarities that strongly undermine its similarity with these systems. Third, since the 1990s the Swiss vocational training regime has experienced a comparatively high – and for coordinated systems unusual – cadence of change (Gonon and Stolz 2002: 273; Trampusch 2010a, b, c). Despite these outstanding features, for a long time, there was hardly any exploration of development and change in the Swiss training system in the comparative research (exceptions are: Heidenheimer 1997; Rothe 2001). However, recently several studies picked up on the Swiss case in their comparative analysis (Gonon 2002; Culpepper 2007; Pilz 2007; Trampusch 2010a, b, c; Gonon and Maurer 2011). In this chapter we put forward two arguments. First, we show that, compared to other collectivist training systems, the Swiss system exhibits some peculiarities which, on the one hand, are attributable to the dominant position of federal instead of cantonal actors in vocational training policy making, and, on the other hand, to the dominance of employers and the weakness of trade unions. Second, we show that following a long period of stability and incremental (selfpreserving) change in the Swiss system, it is currently undergoing a very peculiar track of institutional change. Since the 1990s we have seen not onlyincremental but also transformative change. While evidence for the selfpreserving pattern is provided by the reform of the Vocational and Professional Education and Training Act (BBG) of 2002, the reform of the training system in the commercial sector (1998-2003; KV-Reform) as well as the introduction of the universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen, FHs) in 1996 are instances of transformative change. The pattern of self-preserving change stabilizes the collectivist training system. Transformative change shifts the system to a more firm-based scheme (KV-Reform in the commercial sector) or strengthens the importance of general skills (FH). Our analysis shows that a very specific actor constellation influences these two countervailing patterns of change: if small and medium-sized firms are the dominant reform actors and collaborate with elites in public education administration, self-preserving change results (stability until the 1990s; BBG reform 2002). If these small and medium-sized firms have no veto position, institutional change follows a transformative pattern (KV-Reform, FH). This chapter is divided into five. In the first section the Swiss VET system is analysed in a comparative perspective in order to investigate the reasons behind its outstanding performance and to specify its special features. On the basis of the literature on the politics of institutional change in collectivist training regimes and more recent concepts of institutional change developed within historical institutionalism (Campbell 2004; Streeck and Thelen 2005), the second section presents a conceptual framework that allows us to specify the patterns and the conditions of self-preserving and transformative change. The third section analyses the long period of incremental change until the 1990s. In the fourth section, we explore processes of institutional change since the 1990s. In the fifth section, we summarize and compare the Swiss reform trajectory with that in other collectivist training regimes, namely Germany and Austria. Finally, we briefly explain some further challenges facing the Swiss training regime.