Professional education

The extensive training needed to handle challenging technical and managerial tasks associated with a given profession is provided by the Swiss professional education sector, which ensures that qualified specialists can be found on the Swiss labour market. Each year, around 27,500 people obtain a professional qualification.

Professional education comprises:

preparatory courses for the Federal Professional Examination (FPE) and the Advanced Federal Professional Examination (AFPE)
study programmes at professional education institutions (PEIs)

The professional education sector, together with the universities and universities of applied sciences, form the tertiary level of the Swiss education system.

The Swiss professional education sector offers holders of a Federal VET Diploma, or an equivalent upper-secondary level qualification, the opportunity to acquire more specialised and extensive professional expertise in their field as well as business management skills.

The training provided within the Swiss professional education sector builds on a person’s previous and current work experience. Classroom instruction and the person’s existing employment complement each other in a way that closely resembles the dual-track approach found in the Swiss VET sector. Training content is designed to develop specific professional competences that are in demand on the labour market: emphasis is placed on readily applicable knowledge and skills, rapid introduction of the latest developments in a given professional field and fast-paced innovation. In this manner, the Swiss professional education sector ensures that qualified specialists can be found on the Swiss labour market.