Federal Vocational Baccalaureate (FVB)
The Federal Vocational Baccalaureate (FVB) is an optional general education qualification available to learners who attend the preparatory course for the FVB examination either in parallel to their training for the Federal VET Diploma or after graduation.
Preparatory courses for the FVB examination may be attended either in parallel to the three- or four-year programme for the Federal VET Diploma (FVB 1 option) or afterwards (FVB 2 option). The apprenticeship contract must indicate whether the learner will be attending the preparatory course for the FVB examination or not.
Learners who choose to wait until after they have obtained their Federal VET Diploma may enrol in a preparatory course for the Federal Vocational Baccalaureate examination, either on a full-time or part-time basis. It is also possible for holders of the Federal VET Diploma to take the Federal Vocational Baccalaureate examination without having attended courses at a VET school.
The Federal Vocational Baccalaureate is structured as follows:
Basic subjects:
- First national language
- Second national language
- Third language
- Mathematics
There are also major and minor subjects.
Learners are asked to choose one major subject:
- Finance and Accounting
- Design, Art and Culture
- Information and communication
- Mathematics
- Natural sciences
- Social sciences
- Economics and Law
Learners are asked to choose two minor subjects:
- History and politics
- Technology and Environment
- Economics and Law
In addition to teaching the technical content, the vocational baccalaureate aims to promote methodological competence as well as social and personal competences through interdisciplinary work.
Holders of the Federal Vocational Baccalaureate (FVB) can enrol in any degree programme at a Swiss university of applied sciences (UAS) without having to take an entrance examination, provided the Federal VET Diploma corresponds to the degree programme chosen. If the Federal VET Diploma does not correspond to the desired field of study, it is possible to complete a one-year qualifying traineeship in order to be eligible for admission.
FVB holders can also prepare for an additional examination called the ”University Aptitude Test (UAT)“. Those who pass the UAT obtain a certificate, which entitles them to enrol in a Swiss cantonal university, either of Switzerland’s two federal institutes of technology (EPF in Lausanne or ETH in Zurich), or a Swiss university of teacher education (UTE).
Each federal vocational baccalaureate is accompanied by a certificate supplement, which indicates the level that the qualification holds in the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) (supplementprof.ch).
