Quality improvement/control

Art. 8 of the Vocational and Professional Education and Training Act (VPETA, SR 412.10) stipulates that VET providers (i. e. host company, VET school and branch training centres) and professional education providers (either professional education institutions or schools offering preparatory courses for federal examinations for tertiary-level professional qualifications) are responsible for quality improvement. The Confederation establishes corresponding quality standards and monitors compliance.

Within the Swiss VET sector, the cantons have produced manuals for two quality improvement tools: QualiCarte (for host companies) and QualBC (for branch training centres). The first is intended to enable self-assessment of the quality of apprenticeship training and the second is intended to enable self-assessment of the quality of branch courses. A corresponding quality improvement tool is also planned for VET schools. There are also several other quality improvement methods that may be used, in particular ISO and Q2E.