Ordinance
on Vocational and Professional Education and Training
(Vocational and Professional Education and Training Ordinance, VPETO)

(Art. 1 VPETA)

¹ Co­oper­a­tion between the Con­fed­er­a­tion, the Can­tons and pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions in the area of up­per-sec­ond­ary level vo­ca­tion­al edu­ca­tion and train­ing (VET) and ter­tiary-level pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion en­sures that learners re­ceive high-level com­pet­ences that are com­par­able throughout Switzer­land and cor­res­pond to the needs of the la­bour mar­ket.

² The Con­fed­er­a­tion gen­er­ally works with na­tion­al pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions that carry out activ­it­ies all over Switzer­land. If no such pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tion ex­ists for a giv­en eco­nom­ic branch, then the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies shall work with:

a.

or­gan­isa­tions that are in­volved in a sim­il­ar eco­nom­ic branch; or

b.

or­gan­isa­tions that are in­volved in a cor­res­pond­ing eco­nom­ic branch at re­gion­al level as well as with the Can­tons con­cerned.

(Art. 4 VPETA)

¹ The State Sec­ret­ari­at for Edu­ca­tion, Re­search and In­nov­a­tion (SERI)² shall en­cour­age Swiss VPET re­search un­til hu­man re­source and or­gan­isa­tion­al ca­pa­cit­ies reach a sus­tain­able and in­ter­na­tion­ally re­cog­nised sci­entif­ic level.

² Ten years after com­mence­ment of this Or­din­ance, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall de­cide wheth­er VPET re­search can be con­sidered a branch of gen­er­al edu­ca­tion re­search and there­fore in­cluded in ex­ist­ing na­tion­al re­search fund­ing struc­tures.

³ Fed­er­ally fun­ded VPET re­search shall be aligned with pre­vail­ing con­di­tions ap­plic­able to gen­er­al edu­ca­tion re­search, the edu­ca­tion stat­ist­ics pro­gramme and the eco­nom­ic and busi­ness world.

(Art. 8 VPETA)

¹ SERI shall draft a list of meth­ods de­signed to en­sure im­prove­ment of qual­ity with­in the VPET sys­tem. This list shall be re­viewed peri­od­ic­ally.

² Pro­viders of up­per-sec­ond­ary level VET or ter­tiary-level pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion shall be free to choose from a list of qual­ity im­prove­ment meth­ods. The Can­tons may make a giv­en meth­od man­dat­ory for pub­lic-sec­tor pro­viders.

³ The qual­ity stand­ards es­tab­lished by SERI shall meet cur­rent re­quire­ments and take ac­count of the needs of vari­ous edu­ca­tion and train­ing op­tions.

(Art. 9 para. 2 VPETA)

¹ Re­cog­ni­tion of non-form­al and in­form­al learn­ing shall be de­cided by:

a.

the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies when de­term­in­ing wheth­er or not an in­di­vidu­al may shorten the dur­a­tion of a dual-track VET pro­gramme;

b.

the VET school when de­term­in­ing wheth­er or not an in­di­vidu­al may shorten the dur­a­tion of oth­er VET pro­grammes;

c.

the ex­amin­ing bod­ies in the case of ad­mit­tance to qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures.

² The Can­tons shall es­tab­lish guid­ance coun­selling of­fices that can help in­di­vidu­als draft as­sess­ment port­fo­li­os present­ing all pro­fes­sion­al and non-pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence gained out­side form­al edu­ca­tion path­ways. These as­sess­ment port­fo­li­os shall serve as the basis for the re­cog­ni­tion of non-form­al and in­form­al learn­ing de­scribed in para­graph 1 above.

³ The guid­ance coun­selling of­fices shall work with pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions and ex­tern­al ex­perts.

(Art. 11 VPETA)

When es­tab­lish­ing an ad­equate avail­ab­il­ity of VET pro­grammes and branch courses, the Can­tons shall take par­tic­u­lar ac­count of courses offered to learners free of charge by private pro­viders.

In im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Fed­er­al Vo­ca­tion­al and Pro­fes­sion­al Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing Act, or as a com­ple­ment thereto, the fol­low­ing terms shall be used:

a.

dual-track VET pro­gramme: a VET pro­gramme where most learn­ing takes place at a host com­pany or with­in a host com­pany net­work;

b.

school-based VET pro­gramme: a VET pro­gramme where most learn­ing takes place at a school, namely a trade school or a com­mer­cial school;

c.

host com­pany net­work: a group of two or more com­pan­ies that have pooled their re­sources for the pur­pose of provid­ing com­pre­hens­ive and spe­cial­ised work­place train­ing;

d.

train­ee­ship: a form of work­place train­ing which, while con­sidered part of a school-based VET pro­gramme, takes place out­side the school.

(Art. 12 VPETA)

¹ After com­plet­ing com­puls­ory edu­ca­tion, pu­pils may at­tend pre-vo­ca­tion­al courses. These prac­tic­al and work-re­lated op­tions are in­ten­ded to pre­pare pu­pils for en­rol­ment in up­per-sec­ond­ary level VET.

² Pre-vo­ca­tion­al courses last no more than one year and are sched­uled ac­cord­ing to the aca­dem­ic year.

³ Pu­pils are as­sessed at the end of these pre­par­at­ory courses.

(Art. 14 and 18 para. 1 VPETA)

¹ If sev­er­al ap­pren­tice­ship con­tracts men­tioned in Art­icle 14 para­graph 2 sen­tence 2 of VPETA are needed to cov­er the vari­ous por­tions of work­place train­ing, then all of these con­tracts must be signed and ap­proved by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies pri­or to com­mence­ment of the first ap­pren­tice­ship.

² If work­place train­ing takes place with­in a host com­pany net­work, then the ap­pren­tice­ship con­tract shall be signed by the co­ordin­at­ing com­pany or or­gan­isa­tion and the learner.

³ The tri­al peri­od shall run from the ap­pren­tice­ship start date es­tab­lished in the cor­res­pond­ing ap­pren­tice­ship con­tract. If an ap­pren­tice­ship con­tract un­der para­graph 1 has been draf­ted to cov­er only a por­tion of work­place train­ing, then the tri­al peri­od for that por­tion shall gen­er­ally be one month in dur­a­tion.

⁴ The pro­vi­sions of the ap­pren­tice­ship con­tract shall ap­ply to dual-track VET pro­grammes even when learners start out in a school-based VET pro­gramme for an ex­ten­ded peri­od of time. The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may grant ex­emp­tions if they can guar­an­tee that learners have re­ceived enough prac­tic­al train­ing while en­rolled in the school-based VET pro­gramme to com­plete the dual-track VET pro­gramme.

⁵ The host com­pany or host com­pany net­work shall sub­mit the signed ap­pren­tice­ship con­tract to the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies for ap­prov­al pri­or to com­mence­ment of the VET pro­gramme.

⁶ The con­tract­ing parties shall use the stand­ard con­tract forms provided to them by the Can­tons. SERI shall en­sure that the same con­tract forms are used throughout Switzer­land.

⁷ If the parties to the ap­pren­tice­ship con­tract in­tend to ex­tend or re­duce the dur­a­tion of a VET pro­gramme as de­scribed in Art­icle 18 para­graph 1 VPETA, the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall de­cide on the mat­ter after dis­cus­sion with the parties to the ap­pren­tice­ship con­tract and the VET school.

(Art. 16 para. 2 let. a VPETA)

¹ The of­fi­cial loc­a­tion of the work­place train­ing seg­ment of a dual-track VET pro­gramme shall be the main loc­a­tion where work­place train­ing takes place.

² If the leg­al dom­i­cile of the host com­pany and the main loc­a­tion where work­place train­ing takes place are in two dif­fer­ent Can­tons, the main loc­a­tion where work­place train­ing takes place shall be con­sidered as the of­fi­cial loc­a­tion.

³ For host com­pany net­works, the loc­a­tion used by the co­ordin­at­ing com­pany or or­gan­isa­tion shall be con­sidered as the of­fi­cial loc­a­tion.

⁴ If the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are un­able to agree on the of­fi­cial loc­a­tion of the work­place train­ing seg­ment, then SERI shall de­cide.

(Art. 17 para. 2 and 18 para. 2 VPETA)

¹ Com­pared to three-year and four-year VET pro­grammes, two-year VET pro­grammes provide learners with spe­cif­ic vo­ca­tion­al qual­i­fic­a­tions that are easi­er to ac­quire. They take ac­count of the in­di­vidu­al cap­ab­il­it­ies of learners by of­fer­ing them a par­tic­u­larly broad range of courses and a per­son­al­ised teach­ing ap­proach.

² VET or­din­ances for two-year VET pro­grammes in­clude pro­vi­sions en­abling learners to sub­sequently en­rol in the three-year or four-year VET pro­gramme.

³ Two-year VET pro­grammes may be ex­ten­ded or shortened by no more than one year.

⁴ If a learner runs the risk of not com­plet­ing a VET pro­gramme, the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall, after listen­ing to the learner and the VET school, de­cide wheth­er com­pet­ent in­di­vidu­al tu­tor­ing should be provided to the learner in ques­tion.

⁵ Com­pet­ent in­di­vidu­al tu­tor­ing not only in­cludes classroom in­struc­tion but all rel­ev­ant areas of train­ing that the learner re­quires.

(Art. 24 VPETA)

¹ The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall re­fuse to is­sue VET ac­cred­it­a­tion or shall re­voke already is­sued VET ac­cred­it­a­tion if the work­place train­ing proves un­sat­is­fact­ory, if work­place train­ers fail to ad­here to leg­al re­quire­ments or if they fail to ful­fil their ob­lig­a­tions.

² If there is a risk that a learner will be un­able to com­plete a VET pro­gramme, the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall dis­cuss the mat­ter with the people in­volved and take such steps as are needed to en­sure that the learner is able to un­der­go vo­ca­tion­al edu­ca­tion and train­ing in ac­cord­ance with his or her skills and aptitudes.

³ If ne­ces­sary, the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall re­com­mend that con­tract­ing parties re­vise the ap­pren­tice­ship con­tract, or shall help the learner to trans­fer to an­oth­er VET pro­gramme or learn­ing loc­a­tion.

(Art. 19 VPETA)

¹ VET or­din­ances shall cov­er the fol­low­ing as­pects men­tioned in Art­icle 19 para­graph 2 VPETA:

a.

ad­mis­sion re­quire­ments;

b.

pos­sible ways in which VET pro­grammes may be struc­tured in terms of course con­tent and the level of per­son­al ma­tur­ity re­quired for a giv­en activ­ity;

c.

in­stru­ments to im­prove the qual­ity of VET pro­grammes such as train­ing plans and oth­er re­lated in­stru­ments;

d.

pos­sible re­gion­al par­tic­u­lar­it­ies;

e.

meas­ures to en­sure oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety;

f.

re­quire­ments in terms of con­tent and struc­ture of work­place train­ing in a school with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 6 let­ter b;

g.

the or­gan­isa­tion, dur­a­tion and con­tent of branch courses and sim­il­ar third-party train­ing courses and the co­ordin­a­tion of these courses with classroom in­struc­tion at the VET school.

^1bis VET or­din­ances also reg­u­late the com­pos­i­tion and tasks of Swiss com­mit­tees for oc­cu­pa­tion de­vel­op­ment and qual­ity (CODQ), which are es­tab­lished for the pur­pose of de­vel­op­ing and im­prov­ing the qual­ity of VET pro­grammes for spe­cif­ic oc­cu­pa­tions. The com­pos­i­tion of each CODQ must meet the fol­low­ing cri­ter­ia:

a.

one or more rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Con­fed­er­a­tion;

b.

ad­equate rep­res­ent­a­tion of each of Switzer­land’s lin­guist­ic re­gions.³

^1ter The CODQ re­ferred to in para­graph 1^bis are not ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mit­tees as defined in Art­icle 57a of the Fed­er­al Act of 21 March 1997⁴ on the Or­gan­isa­tion of the Gov­ern­ment and the Ad­min­is­tra­tion. They are es­tab­lished by pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions, which pay re­mu­ner­a­tion to com­mit­tee mem­bers.⁵

² As a rule, learners are re­quired to at­tend a for­eign lan­guage course. This re­quire­ment shall be met in ac­cord­ance with the needs of the VET pro­gramme.

³ Edu­ca­tion reg­u­la­tions that de­part from Art­icles 47, 48 let­ter b and 49 of the Fed­er­al Act of 13 March 1964⁶ on Em­ploy­ment in Busi­ness, Trade and In­dustry (Em­ploy­ment Act, EmpA), shall re­quire ap­prov­al from the State Sec­ret­ari­at for Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs (SECO).

⁴ VET or­din­ances may in­clude pro­vi­sions re­gard­ing spe­cial of­fers that take in­to ac­count work­place train­ing and classroom in­struc­tion.

⁵ …⁷

⁶ Edu­ca­tion reg­u­la­tions on re­cog­nised ra­di­ation pro­tec­tion train­ing in ac­cord­ance with the Ra­di­olo­gic­al Pro­tec­tion Or­din­ance of 26 April 2017⁸ re­quire ap­prov­al from the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Pub­lic Health (FOPH).⁹

(Art. 19 para. 1 VPETA)

¹ Pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 1 para­graph 2 may re­quest that a VET or­din­ance be en­acted.

² The re­quest must be sub­mit­ted to SERI with a writ­ten state­ment of the reas­ons.

³ The par­ti­cip­a­tion of the Can­tons and pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions shall be re­quired in or­der for SERI to pre­pare and en­act such VET or­din­ances.

⁴ SERI shall en­sure that there is co­ordin­a­tion with and between the in­ter­ested parties and the Can­tons. If no agree­ment can be reached, then SERI shall de­cide on the basis of the over­all need for VET pro­grammes and any so­cial part­ner­ship-re­lated rules.

(Art. 16 para. 2 let. a VPETA)

¹ The com­pan­ies be­long­ing to a host com­pany net­work shall form­al­ise their re­spect­ive tasks and re­spons­ib­il­it­ies in a writ­ten con­tract.

² They shall ap­point a mem­ber to act as the co­ordin­at­ing com­pany or or­gan­isa­tion re­spons­ible for draft­ing and sign­ing ap­pren­tice­ship con­tracts and rep­res­ent­ing the host com­pany net­work in its deal­ings with third parties.

³ The VET ac­cred­it­a­tion for the host com­pany net­work shall be giv­en to the co­ordin­at­ing com­pany or or­gan­isa­tion.

(Art. 16 para. 1 let. a and 2 let. a VPETA)

¹ For school-based VET pro­grammes, VET schools shall en­sure that the num­ber of train­ee­ship places matches the num­ber of learners. The VET school shall provide the cor­res­pond­ing su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity with proof of this.

² VET schools shall be held ac­count­able to their su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity for the qual­ity of train­ee­ships.

³ VET schools shall sign a con­tract with a host com­pany whereby the lat­ter un­der­takes to provide work­place train­ing and pay any cor­res­pond­ing wages to learners.

⁴ The host com­pany and the learner shall sign a train­ee­ship con­tract. This con­tract must be ap­proved by the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity if the train­ee­ship is to last for a peri­od ex­ceed­ing six months.

(Art. 16 para. 2 let. a VPETA)

Be­fore a school may ob­tain VET ac­cred­it­a­tion to provide prac­tic­al train­ing with­in the frame­work of a school-based VET pro­gramme, the can­ton­al au­thor­ity shall con­tact the cor­res­pond­ing pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions to make sure that the prac­tic­al train­ing offered by the school cor­res­ponds to the needs of the la­bour mar­ket.

(Art. 21 VPETA)

¹ Fol­low­ing con­sulta­tion with the cor­res­pond­ing pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions, the VET school shall struc­ture VET pro­grammes in­to co­her­ent mod­ules. When do­ing so, the VET school shall take ac­count of the skills and com­pet­ences re­quired for the oc­cu­pa­tion as well as the spe­cif­ic needs of learners.

² The VET school shall des­ig­nate a per­son whom learners and, if ne­ces­sary, the host com­pany may con­tact.

³ If poor per­form­ance in the classroom in­struc­tion seg­ment com­prom­ises the learner’s abil­ity to suc­cess­fully com­plete the dual-track VET pro­gramme or if the learner’s con­duct is un­sat­is­fact­ory, the VET school shall first dis­cuss the mat­ter with the learner and then con­tact the host com­pany.

(Art. 21 VPETA)

¹ Learners who un­der­go work­place train­ing at a host com­pany are also re­quired to at­tend classes at the VET school at least one day per week. If learners are re­quired to at­tend classes for more than one day per week, then these classes must be sched­uled in a con­tigu­ous fash­ion.

² No school day may com­prise more than nine les­sons, in­clud­ing op­tion­al courses and re­medi­al courses.

³ VET schools shall de­cide wheth­er to grant or re­fuse re­quests by learners to be dis­pensed from at­tend­ing man­dat­ory classes. If dis­pens­ing learners will also have an im­pact on the qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure, then the de­cision shall be made by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies.

(Art. 15 para. 2 let. b VPETA)

¹ SERI shall es­tab­lish the min­im­um re­quire­ments for LCS sub­jects taught in two-year, three-year and four-year VET pro­grammes.

² These min­im­um re­quire­ments shall be set forth in a fed­er­al core syl­labus or, if spe­cial needs so re­quire, in VET or­din­ances.

(Art. 22 para. 3 and 4 VPETA)

¹ Op­tion­al courses and re­medi­al courses giv­en by the VET school shall be sched­uled so as not to have a neg­at­ive im­pact on work­place train­ing. Dur­ing work­ing hours, these courses should not take up more than a half a day per week on av­er­age.

² The need to at­tend re­medi­al courses shall be re­viewed peri­od­ic­ally.

³ If learner per­form­ance or con­duct at the VET school or host com­pany is un­sat­is­fact­ory, the VET school shall, in con­sulta­tion with the host com­pany, ex­clude the learner from op­tion­al courses. In the event of dis­agree­ment, the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall de­cide on the mat­ter.

⁴ VET schools shall en­sure that there is a well-bal­anced of­fer­ing of op­tion­al and re­medi­al courses. In par­tic­u­lar, VET schools shall of­fer op­tion­al lan­guage courses.

¹ The Can­tons shall provide fund­ing to pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions in sup­port of their ef­forts to spon­sor branch courses and sim­il­ar third-party train­ing courses.

² The con­tri­bu­tion paid by com­pan­ies to cov­er the costs of branch courses and sim­il­ar third-party train­ing courses may not ex­ceed the total cost of the said courses.

³ The host com­pany shall pay learner costs in re­la­tion to at­tend­ance of branch courses and sim­il­ar third-party train­ing courses.

The Fed­er­al Vo­ca­tion­al Bac­ca­laur­eate (FVB) is gov­erned by the Vo­ca­tion­al Bac­ca­laur­eate Or­din­ance of 24 June 2009¹¹.

(Art. 27 VPETA)

¹ If there is an ini­tial and more ad­vanced fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion for a giv­en pro­fes­sion­al field, then the re­quire­ments for the more ad­vanced of the two ex­am­in­a­tions will be high­er.

² Ter­tiary-level pro­fes­sion­al com­pet­ences shall be based on in­ter­na­tion­ally ac­cep­ted stand­ards.

(Art. 28 para. 2 VPETA)

¹ Pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 1 para­graph 2 may re­quest ap­prov­al of fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions.

² For this pur­pose, the pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions shall set aside the funds needed to of­fer and or­gan­ise fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions.

³ Or­gan­isa­tions that of­fer the cor­res­pond­ing fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions shall have the op­por­tun­ity to act as spon­sors.

⁴ The spon­sor­ship agree­ment shall es­tab­lish the rights and ob­lig­a­tions of the or­gan­isa­tions spon­sor­ing fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions, in keep­ing with their size and eco­nom­ic ca­pa­city.

(Art. 28 para. 3 VPETA)

¹ SERI shall ap­prove only one ini­tial and one ad­vanced fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion per pro­fes­sion­al field with­in a giv­en eco­nom­ic branch.

² SERI shall veri­fy that:

a.

there is a pub­lic in­terest;

b.

there is no con­flict with edu­ca­tion policy or oth­er pub­lic in­terest;

c.

there are enough spon­sors to en­sure that the ex­am­in­a­tions can be held all over Switzer­land for the long-term;

d.

the con­tent of the ex­am­in­a­tions matches the com­pet­ences needed for the oc­cu­pa­tion;

e.

the title is clear, not mis­lead­ing and can­not be mis­taken for a title of any oth­er qual­i­fic­a­tion.

(Art. 28 para. 3 VPETA)

¹ The group of spon­sors shall sub­mit draft ex­am­in­a­tion reg­u­la­tions to SERI for ap­prov­al.

² SERI shall co­ordin­ate the con­tent of ex­am­in­a­tion reg­u­la­tions for re­lated pro­fes­sions.

³ SERI may de­cide to con­sol­id­ate ex­am­in­a­tions for spe­cial­ised fields and areas of study that over­lap.

⁴ If the draft ex­am­in­a­tion reg­u­la­tions meet es­tab­lished cri­ter­ia, SERI shall pub­lish the ap­proved ex­am­in­a­tion reg­u­la­tions in the Fed­er­al Gaz­ette and fix a 30-day peri­od for ob­jec­tions.

⁵ Ob­jec­tions to the ex­am­in­a­tion reg­u­la­tions must be sub­mit­ted to SERI in writ­ing and in­clude reas­ons jus­ti­fy­ing the ob­jec­tion.

(Art. 28 para. 2 and 3 VPETA)

If the group of spon­sors fails to ad­here to ex­am­in­a­tion reg­u­la­tions after re­ceiv­ing a warn­ing, SERI may de­cide to trans­fer the rights to or­gan­ise ex­am­in­a­tions to an­oth­er group of spon­sors or may re­voke its ap­prov­al of the ex­am­in­a­tion reg­u­la­tions.

(Art. 29 para. 3 VPETA)

Pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions shall be reg­u­lated by an or­din­ance of the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, Edu­ca­tion and Re­search (EAER)¹² on study pro­grammes at pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions.

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take part in meas­ures re­lat­ing to the co­ordin­a­tion, qual­ity and trans­par­ency of con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing courses that are of use to a giv­en oc­cu­pa­tion or pro­fes­sion and can be offered at the na­tion­al level or with­in a spe­cif­ic lin­guist­ic re­gion.

² Pub­lic-run struc­tures and train­ing courses shall, wherever pos­sible, be made avail­able as la­bour mar­ket meas­ures un­der the Un­em­ploy­ment In­sur­ance Act of 25 June 1982¹⁴.

(Art. 33 and 34 para. 1 VPETA)

¹ Qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures must:

a.

be aligned with qual­i­fic­a­tion tar­gets es­tab­lished in the rel­ev­ant VET or­din­ances;

b.

as­sess verbal, writ­ten and prac­tic­al as­pects that are judged ac­cord­ing to the spe­cif­ic fea­tures of the cor­res­pond­ing qual­i­fic­a­tion field and take ac­count of school edu­ca­tion and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence;

c.

use com­pet­ence as­sess­ment ap­proaches that are ap­pro­pri­ate and suited to the tar­get group.

² A fi­nal in­ter­dis­cip­lin­ary ex­am­in­a­tion or equi­val­ent qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure shall be re­quired if the com­pet­ence as­sess­ment is be­ing per­formed for the pur­pose of is­su­ing a qual­i­fic­a­tion.

(Art. 33 VPETA)

¹ Oth­er qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures in­clude pro­ced­ures that are gen­er­ally not covered by VET or­din­ances but are nev­er­the­less suit­able for com­pet­ence as­sess­ment.

² The qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures re­ferred to in para­graph 1 may be stand­ard­ised for spe­cif­ic groups of people and reg­u­lated in cor­res­pond­ing VET or­din­ances.

(Art. 34 para. 2 VPETA)

If com­pet­ences were ob­tained out­side an es­tab­lished course of study, only can­did­ates who have at least five years of pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence may be per­mit­ted to un­der­go qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures.

¹ Can­did­ates may re­peat qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures no more than twice. Parts of qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures that can­did­ates have passed need not be re­peated. VET or­din­ances may provide for stricter re­quire­ments for re­peat­ing qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures.

² Sched­ules for re­peat­ing qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures must be ar­ranged in such a way as to en­sure that the bod­ies re­spons­ible for or­gan­ising the qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures do not in­cur dis­pro­por­tion­ate costs.

(Art. 34 para. 1 VPETA)

¹ Qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure per­form­ance shall be ex­pressed as a score in whole in­tegers or half-in­tegers. 1 is con­sidered the low­est score and 6 the highest. Scores un­der 4 are con­sidered un­sat­is­fact­ory.

² Scores oth­er than half-in­tegers shall only be per­mit­ted for av­er­ages cal­cu­lated on the basis of in­di­vidu­al po­s­i­tions in cor­res­pond­ing VET or­din­ances. Av­er­ages shall be roun­ded up or down to no more than one decim­al place.

³ VET or­din­ances may also provide for oth­er as­sess­ment sys­tems.

(Art. 17 VPETA)

¹ Can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall ap­point ex­am­iners to or­gan­ise fi­nal ex­am­in­a­tions upon com­ple­tion of VET pro­grammes. The cor­res­pond­ing pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions shall have the right to pro­pose ex­am­iners.

² Dur­ing the qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure, ex­am­iners shall write down the res­ults, their ob­ser­va­tions and any ob­jec­tions raised by the can­did­ates.

³ Can­did­ates with dis­ab­il­it­ies shall be giv­en the spe­cial aids or ad­di­tion­al time that they may reas­on­ably re­quire.

⁴ In fields taught in two lan­guages, all or part of the ex­am­in­a­tion may be giv­en in the second lan­guage.

⁵ The bod­ies re­spons­ible for or­gan­ising the ex­am­in­a­tion shall de­cide wheth­er the can­did­ate may be is­sued the cor­res­pond­ing up­per-sec­ond­ary level vo­ca­tion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion.

(Art. 43 para. 1 and 2 VPETA)

¹ The body re­spons­ible for the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion shall de­cide which can­did­ates may be ad­mit­ted to the qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure and wheth­er they may ob­tain the cor­res­pond­ing ter­tiary-level pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion.

² Ter­tiary-level pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tions shall be is­sued by SERI. Qual­i­fic­a­tion hold­ers shall be free to de­cide which of­fi­cial lan­guage they would like their qual­i­fic­a­tion to be is­sued in.

³ Ter­tiary-level pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tions shall be signed by the chair­per­son of the body re­spons­ible for or­gan­ising the cor­res­pond­ing fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion as well as by a mem­ber of SERI ex­ec­ut­ive man­age­ment.¹⁵

(Art. 43 para. 3 VPETA)

¹ SERI’s re­gister of hold­ers of ter­tiary-level pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tions shall con­tain the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.

sur­name and first name;

b.

date of birth;

c.

ho­met­own (for Swiss na­tion­als) or cit­izen­ship (for for­eign na­tion­als);

d.

place of res­id­ence at the time the ex­am­in­a­tion was taken;

e.

year when the ex­am­in­a­tion was taken.

² SERI may pub­lish in a suit­able man­ner the data men­tioned in para­graph 1 let­ters a, d and e as well as the date of birth of the qual­i­fic­a­tion hold­er.

³ SERI shall ob­tain the con­sent of the per­son con­cerned be­fore the data men­tioned in para­graph 2 above is pub­lished. Qual­i­fic­a­tion hold­ers shall be free to with­hold their con­sent without stat­ing their reas­ons or with­hold this con­sent at a later time.

(Art. 19 para. 2 let. e, 28 para. 2 and 29 para. 3 VPETA)¹⁶

¹ SERI shall pub­lish a list in elec­tron­ic form¹⁷:

a.

of pro­tec­ted titles of up­per-sec­ond­ary level vo­ca­tion­al and ter­tiary-level pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tions in the three of­fi­cial lan­guages of the Con­fed­er­a­tion; Eng­lish titles may also be used if they have a single in­ter­na­tion­ally re­cog­nised mean­ing;

b.

of part­ners to which each pro­tec­ted title is as­signed.¹⁸

² At the re­quest of qual­i­fic­a­tion hold­ers, SERI shall is­sue a doc­u­ment in Eng­lish de­scrib­ing the con­tent of the train­ing or spe­cif­ic com­pet­ences. ...¹⁹

(Art. 41 VPETA)

¹ The cost of ma­ter­i­als and rent­al space is not covered by the ex­am­in­a­tion fees men­tioned in Art­icle 41 VPETA and must be paid for in part or in full by the host com­pan­ies them­selves.

² If qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures are or­gan­ised for in­di­vidu­als who have not un­der­gone form­al vo­ca­tion­al edu­ca­tion and train­ing, the au­thor­ity may re­quire that the can­did­ates them­selves pay all or part of the as­so­ci­ated costs.

³ The rules on shar­ing the costs of qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures or­gan­ised for in­di­vidu­als who lack form­al vo­ca­tion­al qual­i­fic­a­tions must be sub­mit­ted to SERI for ap­prov­al, as long as the qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures are not or­gan­ised at the can­ton­al level.

⁴ The in­come from fees charged for fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions may not ex­ceed the full costs in­curred by the group of spon­sors, cal­cu­lated on the basis of a six-year av­er­age, in­clud­ing sums al­loc­ated to a re­serve fund.

(Art. 45 para. 3 and 46 para. 2 VPETA)

¹ In­di­vidu­als who provide work­place train­ing or classroom in­struc­tion with­in the frame­work of VET pro­grammes must have an ad­equate level of train­ing, as de­term­ined by the min­im­um re­quire­ments un­der Art­icles 44–47. This level of train­ing shall be at­tested by means of:

a.

a fed­er­ally is­sued or re­cog­nised de­gree; or

b.

a cer­ti­fic­ate for work­place train­ers who have un­der­gone a 40-hour course.

² In­di­vidu­als who do not meet the min­im­um re­quire­ments at the time they be­gin to carry out their activ­it­ies must ob­tain the cor­res­pond­ing qual­i­fic­a­tions with­in five years.

³ The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall, after con­sult­ing with the pro­viders of the cor­res­pond­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing pro­gramme, de­cide on tech­nic­al equi­val­ences of in­di­vidu­al VET pro­fes­sion­als.

⁴ For spe­cif­ic oc­cu­pa­tions, min­im­um edu­ca­tion and train­ing re­quire­ments may be high­er than those es­tab­lished by this Or­din­ance. These re­quire­ments shall be es­tab­lished in cor­res­pond­ing VET or­din­ances.

(Art. 29 para. 3 and 46 para. 2 VPETA)

The EAER shall es­tab­lish the min­im­um re­quire­ments for teach­ers at pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions.

¹ Learn­ing hours shall in­clude hours of at­tend­ance, the av­er­age amount of time needed for self-study and train­ing, per­son­al or group pro­jects, oth­er events or­gan­ised as part of the edu­ca­tion and train­ing pro­gramme, peri­od­ic test­ing to mon­it­or pro­gress and qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures, prac­tic­al use of skills ac­quired and guided ap­pren­tice­ships.

² Learn­ing hours may be broken down in­to mod­ules us­ing a stand­ard cred­it-based sys­tem; frac­tions of cred­its shall be roun­ded up.

(Art. 45 VPETA)

Con­tinu­ing train­ing of VPET pro­fes­sion­als shall be sub­ject to the qual­ity im­prove­ment meas­ures men­tioned in Art­icle 8 VPETA.

(Art. 45 VPETA)

¹ Work­place train­ers in host com­pan­ies must have:

a.

a Fed­er­al VET Dip­loma or equi­val­ent qual­i­fic­a­tion in the field in which they will be train­ing oth­ers;

b.

two years of prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence in the field in which they will be train­ing oth­ers;

c.

a vo­ca­tion­al ped­agogy qual­i­fic­a­tion equi­val­ent to 100 learn­ing hours.

² Suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of a 40-hour course may be used in­stead of the learn­ing hours men­tioned in para­graph 1 let­ter c. A course cer­ti­fic­ate shall be is­sued to con­firm com­ple­tion of the 40-hour course.

(Art. 45 VPETA)

In­struct­ors for branch courses and sim­il­ar third-party train­ing courses, trade schools and oth­er re­cog­nised in­sti­tu­tions provid­ing work­place train­ing must have:

a.

a ter­tiary-level pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion or equi­val­ent qual­i­fic­a­tion in the field in which they will be train­ing oth­ers;

b.

two years of prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence in the field in which they will be train­ing oth­ers;

c.

com­pleted vo­ca­tion­al ped­agogy train­ing cov­er­ing a total of:

1.

600 learn­ing hours for full-time work­place train­ers,

2.

300 learn­ing hours for part-time work­place train­ers.

(Art. 46 VPETA)

¹ The fol­low­ing re­quire­ments must be met by teach­ers re­spons­ible for classroom in­struc­tion and pre­par­ing learners for the FVB ex­am­in­a­tion:

a.

com­pleted vo­ca­tion­al ped­agogy train­ing at a high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tion;

b.

ob­tained a ter­tiary-level de­gree in a spe­cial­ised field;

c.

have six months of work ex­per­i­ence.

² The fol­low­ing re­quire­ments must be met in or­der to teach vo­ca­tion­al sub­jects with­in the frame­work of a VET pro­gramme:

a.

a ter­tiary-level qual­i­fic­a­tion, wheth­er it be a pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion or a high­er edu­ca­tion qual­i­fic­a­tion;

b.

suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of vo­ca­tion­al ped­agogy train­ing cov­er­ing a total of:

1.

1800 learn­ing hours for full-time teach­ers,

2.

300 learn­ing hours for part-time teach­ers.

³ The fol­low­ing re­quire­ments must be met in or­der to teach LCS sub­jects, sport or courses in fields for which high­er edu­ca­tion stud­ies are re­quired:

a.

ob­tained a teach­er’s cer­ti­fic­ate for com­puls­ory edu­ca­tion, a teach­er’s cer­ti­fic­ate for LCS sub­jects or sport edu­ca­tion (in ac­cord­ance with train­ing plan for VET pro­gramme), and vo­ca­tion­al ped­agogy train­ing cov­er­ing a total of 300 learn­ing hours; or

b.

ob­tained a bac­ca­laur­eate school teach­er’s cer­ti­fic­ate and suc­cess­fully com­pleted vo­ca­tion­al ped­agogy train­ing cov­er­ing a total of 300 learn­ing hours; or

c.

suc­cess­fully com­pleted cor­res­pond­ing high­er edu­ca­tion stud­ies as well as vo­ca­tion­al ped­agogy train­ing cov­er­ing a total of 1800 learn­ing hours.²⁰

(Art. 45 and 46 VPETA)

¹ The part-time train­ers and teach­ers are in­di­vidu­als who train and teach oth­ers in ad­di­tion to their work in the cor­res­pond­ing field.

² The in­di­vidu­al’s main job takes up at least half of the stand­ard work­week.

³ In­di­vidu­als who train or teach less than an av­er­age of four hours per week shall not be sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 45 let­ter c and Art­icle 46 para­graph 2 let­ter b no. 2.

(Art. 45 and 46 VPETA)

Vo­ca­tion­al ped­agogy train­ing pro­grammes shall be based on the con­text of the loc­a­tions where work­place train­ing and classroom in­struc­tion take place. It shall in­clude the fol­low­ing as­pects:

a.

VPET sys­tem and as­so­ci­ated con­text: VPET sys­tem, leg­al basis, guid­ance coun­selling ser­vices;

b.

learners: job-re­lated so­cial­isa­tion of young people and adults with­in the com­pany, school and so­ci­ety;

c.

teach­ing and learn­ing: plan­ning, car­ry­ing out and as­sess­ing learn­ing activ­it­ies, provid­ing sup­port and as­sist­ance to learners as they make their way through the train­ing and learn­ing pro­cess, as­sess­ing and se­lect­ing learners on the basis of a full range of aptitudes;

d.

ap­ply­ing what they have learnt to work­place train­ing pro­grammes or to classroom in­struc­tion;

e.

un­der­stand­ing the role of the teach­er/train­er, main­tain­ing busi­ness and aca­dem­ic con­tacts, es­tab­lish­ing one’s own con­tinu­ing train­ing pro­gramme;

f.

in­ter­act­ing with learners, work­ing with their leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ives, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, host com­pan­ies, VET schools and oth­er learn­ing loc­a­tions;

g.

gen­er­al top­ics such as work-ori­ented men­tal­ity, eth­ics, gender is­sues, health, mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, oc­cu­pa­tion­al safety.

(Art. 45 and 46 VPETA)

¹ SERI shall es­tab­lish core syl­lab­uses for the qual­i­fic­a­tion of VPET pro­fes­sion­als. These core syl­lab­uses shall de­term­ine the amount of time de­voted to the vari­ous mod­ules, course con­tent as well as the prac­tic­al skills and com­pet­ences re­quired of VPET pro­fes­sion­als.

² The cor­res­pond­ing in­sti­tu­tion shall or­gan­ise courses of study. These courses of study shall com­bine sub­ject mat­ter ex­pert­ise with vo­ca­tion­al ped­agogy skills.

SERI shall work on courses for ex­am­iners with can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies and the pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions re­spons­ible for qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures. SERI shall also en­sure that ex­am­iners en­rol in these courses.

(Art. 45 and 46 VPETA)

¹ Fed­er­al re­cog­ni­tion of qual­i­fic­a­tions re­lat­ing to courses of study for VET pro­fes­sion­als shall be de­term­ined by:

a.

the Can­tons, for courses of study in­ten­ded for work­place train­ers in host com­pan­ies, un­less the courses of study in ques­tion are or­gan­ised throughout Switzer­land;

b.

SERI, for courses of study in­ten­ded for work­place train­ers in host com­pan­ies or oth­er courses of study, if the courses of study are or­gan­ised throughout Switzer­land.

² In or­der to ob­tain re­cog­ni­tion, doc­u­ments con­tain­ing the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted:

a.

of­fer of ser­vices;

b.

teach­ing qual­i­fic­a­tions;

c.

fund­ing;

d.

qual­ity im­prove­ment.

(Art. 45 and 46 VPETA)

Qual­i­fic­a­tions shall be re­cog­nised if:

a.

the in­ten­ded train­ing pro­gramme matches the core syl­lab­uses men­tioned in Art­icle 49;

b.

the train­ing pro­gramme can be im­ple­men­ted smoothly.

(Art. 49 VPETA)

¹ In col­lab­or­a­tion with part­ners, vo­ca­tion­al, edu­ca­tion­al and ca­reer guid­ance coun­sel­lors help in­di­vidu­als to pre­pare for, choose and shape their ca­reers.

² Guid­ance cov­ers the pro­vi­sion of gen­er­al in­form­a­tion about ex­ist­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing pro­grammes as well as spe­cif­ic in­form­a­tion and ad­vice based on in­di­vidu­al needs.

³ Per­son­al ad­vice is in­ten­ded to en­able per­sons seek­ing ad­vice to make in­formed vo­ca­tion­al, edu­ca­tion­al and ca­reer de­cisions based on their spe­cif­ic skills and aptitudes as well as on the needs of the la­bour mar­ket.

(Art. 50 VPETA)

¹ Spe­cial­ised train­ing of vo­ca­tion­al, edu­ca­tion­al and ca­reer guid­ance coun­sel­lors shall be provided by a high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tion or by an in­sti­tu­tion re­cog­nised by SERI.

² Spe­cial­ised train­ing shall cov­er:

a.

600 learn­ing hours for learners who have already earned a ter­tiary-level high­er edu­ca­tion qual­i­fic­a­tion and 1800 learn­ing hours for all oth­er learners;

b.

train­ee­ships last­ing a total of twelve weeks.

³ In or­der to teach, teach­ers must have a qual­i­fic­a­tion in vo­ca­tion­al, edu­ca­tion­al and ca­reer guid­ance awar­ded by a high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tion or a fed­er­ally re­cog­nised in­sti­tu­tion and must be able to cer­ti­fy their meth­od­o­lo­gic­al and di­dact­ic skills.

⁴ For oth­er types of de­grees, SERI shall de­cide on a case-per-case basis.

(Art. 50 VPETA)

¹ Spe­cial­ised train­ing for vo­ca­tion­al, edu­ca­tion­al and ca­reer guid­ance coun­sel­lors shall cov­er the fol­low­ing areas:

a.

people as in­di­vidu­als: de­vel­op­ment­al, learn­ing and per­son­al­ity psy­cho­logy;

b.

people and so­ci­ety: so­ci­olo­gic­al, leg­al and eco­nom­ic prin­ciples;

c.

people and work: edu­ca­tion sys­tem, choice of oc­cu­pa­tion and stud­ies, ca­reer stud­ies, oc­cu­pa­tion­al psy­cho­logy and la­bour mar­ket;

d.

work­ing meth­ods: coun­selling, dia­gnostics, pre­par­ing in­di­vidu­als for ca­reer choices, per­form­ance re­view, doc­u­ment­a­tion and pub­lic re­la­tions;

e.

un­der­stand­ing of tasks: pro­fes­sion­al eth­ics, pro­fes­sion­al iden­tity, qual­ity im­prove­ment.

² Train­ing shall cov­er the es­sen­tial as­pects of provid­ing ori­ent­a­tion to young people, edu­ca­tion­al guid­ance, ca­reer guid­ance to adults as well as guid­ance to in­di­vidu­als with dis­ab­il­it­ies.

(Art. 50 VPETA)

¹ Edu­ca­tion and train­ing in­sti­tu­tions shall de­cide wheth­er can­did­ates may gain ac­cess to qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures. When do­ing so, these in­sti­tu­tions shall also con­sider com­pet­ences ob­tained out­side their own edu­ca­tion and train­ing pro­grammes.

² In­di­vidu­als who suc­cess­fully com­plete qual­i­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ures shall be awar­ded a qual­i­fic­a­tion from the edu­ca­tion and train­ing in­sti­tu­tion and shall have the right to use the title «cer­ti­fied vo­ca­tion­al, edu­ca­tion­al and ca­reer guid­ance coun­sel­lor».

(Art. 52 para. 1 and 59 para. 2 VPETA)

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion’s share of VPET costs re­lat­ing to the tasks men­tioned in VPETA shall be cal­cu­lated on the basis of the av­er­age net cost to the Con­fed­er­a­tion in the pre­vi­ous four cal­en­dar years.

² Net costs are de­term­ined by cal­cu­lat­ing the full costs and sub­tract­ing the rev­en­ues.

³ Net costs shall not in­clude the fol­low­ing:

a.

costs in­curred by im­ple­ment­a­tion au­thor­it­ies;

b.

work­place and payroll costs for learners work­ing with­in the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion or pub­lic cor­por­a­tions.

(Art. 53 para. 2 VPETA)

¹ By 1 Ju­ly of each year, the Can­tons shall in­form SERI of the net costs that they and the com­munes in­curred in the pre­vi­ous year in re­la­tion to VPET.

² The costs shall be broken down ac­cord­ing to the tasks men­tioned in Art­icle 53 para­graph 2 VPETA. The costs as­so­ci­ated with school-based VET pro­grammes must be presen­ted sep­ar­ately.

³ SERI may es­tab­lish oth­er break­down cri­ter­ia in cor­res­pond­ing guidelines.

(Art. 52 VPETA)²²

Fed­er­al sub­sidies shall be al­loc­ated as fol­lows:

a.

sub­sidies un­der Art­icle 4 para­graph 2 and Art­icle 48 VPETA;

b.

sub­sidies un­der Art­icle 54 and Art­icle 55 VPETA;

c.²³

sub­sidies un­der Art­icles 56 and 56a VPETA;

d.

lump-sum sub­sidy men­tioned in Art­icle 53 VPETA.

¹ Fed­er­al lump-sum fund­ing provided to the Can­tons un­der Art­icle 53 VPETA shall be di­vided as fol­lows:

a.

one por­tion for the costs of school-based VET pro­grammes;

b.

one por­tion for the costs of dual-track VET pro­grammes.

² The por­tion re­ferred to in para­graph 1 let­ter a shall be dis­trib­uted among the Can­tons on the basis of the num­ber learners en­rolled in school-based VET pro­grammes, the por­tion re­ferred to in para­graph 1 let­ter b shall be dis­trib­uted among the Can­tons on the basis of the num­ber of learners en­rolled in dual-track VET pro­grammes. The frame of ref­er­ence shall be the av­er­age amount of lump-sum fund­ing gran­ted over the past four years.

³ Can­tons that do not of­fer pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion or job-re­lated CET shall re­ceive a com­men­sur­ately smal­ler lump-sum pay­ment.

⁴ …²⁴

⁵ SERI shall make lump-sum pay­ments twice per year.

(Art. 4 and 54 VPETA)²⁶

¹ Fed­er­al sub­sidies for pro­jects that seek to de­vel­op the VPET sys­tem in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 54 VPETA shall cov­er no more than 60 per cent of the total cor­res­pond­ing ex­pendit­ure. In jus­ti­fi­able cases, this threshold may be ex­ten­ded to a max­im­um of 80 per cent.

² Fed­er­al sub­sidies shall be gran­ted as fol­lows:

a.

for stud­ies and pi­lot pro­jects: on the basis of how well they can meas­ure the feas­ib­il­ity and ef­fect­ive­ness of new edu­ca­tion meas­ures in the field or how well they can im­ple­ment re­forms;

b.

for the cre­ation of new more ef­fi­cient struc­tures: on the basis of wheth­er vari­ous part­ners are will­ing to join an in­de­pend­ent body re­spons­ible for new VPET-re­lated fields.

³ Pro­jects shall be sub­sid­ised for a peri­od not ex­ceed­ing four years. This fund­ing may be ex­ten­ded for a max­im­um of one more year.

(Art. 55 VPETA)

¹ Fed­er­al sub­sidies for spe­cif­ic activ­it­ies that serve the pub­lic in­terest in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 55 VPETA shall cov­er no more than 60 per cent of the total cor­res­pond­ing ex­pendit­ure. In jus­ti­fi­able cases, this threshold may be ex­ten­ded to a max­im­um of 80 per cent.

^1bis …²⁷

² Sub­sidy amounts shall vary ac­cord­ing to:

a.

the de­gree of in­terest;

b.

the like­li­hood that ap­plic­ants will provide ser­vices them­selves;

c.

the ur­gency of the meas­ure.

³ Activ­it­ies shall be sub­sid­ised for a peri­od not ex­ceed­ing five years. This peri­od may be ex­ten­ded.

(Art. 56 VPETA)

¹ The fed­er­al sub­sidies men­tioned in Art­icle 56 VPETA for fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions shall cov­er no more than 60 per cent of the cor­res­pond­ing ex­pendit­ure.

² A spe­cial sub­sidy of up to 80 per cent of the cor­res­pond­ing ex­pendit­ure may be gran­ted for ex­am­in­a­tions that are par­tic­u­larly costly for tech­nic­al reas­ons. When ap­ply­ing for a spe­cial sub­sidy, the reas­ons jus­ti­fy­ing the ap­plic­a­tion must be giv­en.

(Art. 56 VPETA)

¹ The sub­sidies men­tioned in Art­icle 56 VPETA for study pro­grammes at pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions shall cov­er no more than 25 per cent of the cor­res­pond­ing ex­pendit­ure.

² Sub­sidies for study pro­grammes at pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions shall be provided if:

a.

the study pro­grammes are cre­ated by pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions whose activ­it­ies are car­ried out at na­tion­al level, for the whole of Switzer­land; and

b.

the study pro­grammes do not already be­ne­fit from can­ton­al sub­sidies.

¹ SERI shall es­tab­lish guidelines for fund­ing re­quests, budget­ing and the cal­cu­la­tion of pro­ject costs un­der Art­icles 54–56 VPETA.

² SERI shall sub­mit in­com­ing fund­ing re­quests to the Fed­er­al Com­mis­sion for Vo­ca­tion­al and Pro­fes­sion­al Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing (EBBK) to ob­tain its opin­ion. For the pro­jects men­tioned in Art­icle 54 VPETA, only pro­jects whose total cost ex­ceeds CHF 250,000 shall be sub­mit­ted.

³ For the pro­jects men­tioned in Art­icles 54–56 VPETA, SERI shall provide the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion in its de­cision re­gard­ing the sub­sidy:

a.

amount of sub­sidy gran­ted;

b.

meas­ures to mon­it­or achieve­ment of the goals es­tab­lished;

c.

pro­ced­ure to be fol­lowed in the event of un­fore­seen cir­cum­stances;

d.

as­sess­ment of ac­tion taken.

⁴ For pro­jects men­tioned in Art­icle 54 VPETA, SERI shall provide the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion in its de­cision re­gard­ing the sub­sidy:

a.

the vari­ous steps to be fol­lowed for pro­jects whose ex­pec­ted dur­a­tion ex­ceeds one year;

b.

fol­low-up and im­ple­ment­a­tion meas­ures;

c.

in­form­a­tion on res­ults and dis­sem­in­a­tion.

¹ Per­sons who com­plete pre­par­at­ory courses for fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions may ap­ply to SERI for a fed­er­al sub­sidy.

² As a rule, the sub­sidy ap­plic­a­tion is sub­mit­ted after the per­son has taken the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion.

³ If the pre­requis­ites un­der Art­icle 66e are met, then it is pos­sible for the per­son to re­quest that part of the sub­sidy be paid be­fore he/she has taken the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion.

The sub­sidy ap­plic­a­tion sub­mit­ted after a per­son has taken a fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion shall in­clude the fol­low­ing:

a.

In­form­a­tion about the ap­plic­ant;

b.

the in­voices is­sued by the pro­vider of the pre­par­at­ory course in­dic­at­ing the course fees to be paid by the course par­ti­cipant;

c.

the cer­ti­fic­ate is­sued by the pro­vider of the pre­par­at­ory course con­firm­ing that the course par­ti­cipant has paid the course fees;

d.

the ex­am­in­a­tion re­port in­dic­at­ing wheth­er the course par­ti­cipant ob­tained a passing or fail­ing score on the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion.

¹ SERI shall pay a sub­sidy if:

a.

the per­son com­plet­ing the pre­par­at­ory course has his/her tax dom­i­cile in Switzer­land on the date of is­su­ance of the ex­am­in­a­tion re­port at­test­ing to the pass/fail score ob­tained on the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion;

b.

the com­pleted pre­par­at­ory course:

1.

was in­cluded in the of­fi­cial list of pre­par­at­ory courses for fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions un­der Art­icle 66g in the year in which the course began, and

2.

was at­ten­ded not longer than sev­en years pri­or to is­su­ance of the ex­am­in­a­tion re­port at­test­ing to the pass/fail score ob­tained on the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion;

c.

the eli­gible course fees ex­ceed a total of CHF 1000;

d.

the pro­vider of the pre­par­at­ory course is­sues a cer­ti­fic­ate in­dic­at­ing that the per­son com­plet­ing the pre­par­at­ory course has paid the course fees and that this cer­ti­fic­ate has not already been sub­mit­ted in re­la­tion to an­oth­er ap­plic­a­tion or re­quest;

e.

a fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion was taken;

f.

the ap­plic­a­tion was sub­mit­ted with­in a peri­od of two years pri­or to is­su­ance of the ex­am­in­a­tion re­port at­test­ing to the pass/fail score ob­tained on the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion.

² SERI shall only pay the sub­sidy to the per­son who com­pleted the pre­par­at­ory course.

¹ The ap­plic­a­tion for par­tial pay­ment of the sub­sidy to the per­son tak­ing the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion in­cludes:

a.

in­form­a­tion about the ap­plic­ant;

b.

a writ­ten com­mit­ment to SERI:

1.

that the per­son will take the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion, and

2.

that the per­son will pro­duce the ex­am­in­a­tion re­port at­test­ing to the pass/fail score ob­tained on the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion no later than five years after the first sub­sidy ap­plic­a­tion was sub­mit­ted;

c.

the in­voice is­sued by the pro­vider of the pre­par­at­ory course in­dic­at­ing the course fees to be paid by the course par­ti­cipant;

d.

the con­firm­a­tion is­sued by the pro­vider of the pre­par­at­ory course con­firm­ing that the course par­ti­cipant has paid the eli­gible course fees;

e.

proof that, ac­cord­ing to the last leg­ally bind­ing tax as­sess­ment, the ap­plic­ant was re­quired to pay less than CHF 88 in dir­ect fed­er­al tax­a­tion.

² Sev­er­al ap­plic­a­tions may be sub­mit­ted for par­tial pay­ment of the sub­sidy. Any re­main­ing amounts may be ap­plied for as soon as the per­son sub­mits the ex­am­in­a­tion re­port at­test­ing to the pass/fail score ob­tained on the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion.

¹ SERI shall make par­tial pay­ment of the sub­sidy if:

a.

the Ap­plic­ant has his/her tax dom­i­cile in Switzer­land on the date when the ap­plic­a­tion is sub­mit­ted;

b.

a com­mit­ment with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 66d para­graph 1 let­ter b has been signed;

c.

the com­pleted pre­par­at­ory course:

1.

was in­cluded in the of­fi­cial list of pre­par­at­ory courses for fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions un­der Art­icle 66g in the year in which the course began, and

2.

was at­ten­ded no longer than two years be­fore the sub­sidy ap­plic­a­tion was sub­mit­ted;

d.

the eli­gible course fees per ap­plic­a­tion ex­ceed CHF 3500;

e.

the pro­vider of the pre­par­at­ory course is­sues a cer­ti­fic­ate in­dic­at­ing that the course par­ti­cipant has paid the eli­gible course fees and that this cer­ti­fic­ate has not already been sub­mit­ted in re­la­tion to an­oth­er ap­plic­a­tion or re­quest;

f.

ac­cord­ing to the last leg­ally bind­ing tax as­sess­ment, the ap­plic­ant was re­quired to pay less than CHF 88 in dir­ect fed­er­al tax­a­tion.

² As soon as SERI re­ceives the ex­am­in­a­tion re­port at­test­ing to the pass/fail score ob­tained on the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion as well as any oth­er at­test­a­tions, SERI shall is­sue a fi­nal ac­count and pay all re­main­ing amounts upon re­quest up to the up­per threshold.

³ These sub­sidy pay­ments shall be made ex­clus­ively to the course par­ti­cipant.

⁴ If SERI does not re­ceive the ex­am­in­a­tion re­port at­test­ing to the pass/fail score ob­tained on the fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion with­in the time­frame men­tioned in Art­icle 66d para­graph 1 let­ter b num­ber 2, then any sub­sidy amounts paid in ad­vance must be paid back. The pro­vi­sions of the Fed­er­al Act of 5 Oc­to­ber 1990³⁴ on Fin­an­cial As­sist­ance and Sub­sidies shall ap­ply.

¹ The sub­sidy amount for sub­sidy ap­plic­a­tions un­der Art­icle 66b and for sub­sidy ap­plic­a­tions un­der Art­icle 66d shall be 50 per cent of eli­gible course fees.

² The up­per threshold for eli­gible course fees per eli­gible per­son and qual­i­fic­a­tion shall be:

a.

for level-one fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions: CHF 19 000;

b.

for level-two fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions: CHF 21 000.

³ Only the por­tion of the course fees that is dir­ectly used to im­part know­ledge re­quired for fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions is con­sidered eli­gible for a sub­sidy. Ex­penses for travel, food and ac­com­mod­a­tion are not con­sidered as eli­gible.

⁴ Course fees that were re­duced by vir­tue of the In­ter­can­t­on­al Agree­ment of 22 March 2012³⁵ on Fund­ing Con­tri­bu­tions for Study Pro­grammes at Pro­fes­sion­al Edu­ca­tion In­sti­tu­tions (ICA-PEI) are not eli­gible.

¹ SERI shall main­tain a list of pre­par­at­ory courses for fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions. This list shall be in­cluded in the Or­din­ance and pub­lished by ref­er­ence (Art. 5 para. 1 let. c of the Fed­er­al Act of 18 June 2004³⁶ on the Com­pil­a­tions of Fed­er­al Le­gis­la­tion and the Fed­er­al Gaz­ette). This list shall be ac­cess­ible in elec­tron­ic form³⁷. SERI shall up­date this list on an an­nu­al basis.

² Pro­viders wish­ing to have their pre­par­at­ory courses in­cluded in this list must sat­is­fy the fol­low­ing con­di­tions:

a.

their leg­al dom­i­cile must be in Switzer­land; and

b.

provide guar­an­tees that the im­posed ob­lig­a­tions (Art. 66i) have been met.

³ Pro­viders shall re­gister with SERI and provide the ne­ces­sary in­form­a­tion and sup­port­ing doc­u­ments.

⁴ SERI shall in­clude a pre­par­at­ory course in the list if the fol­low­ing pre­requis­ites have been met:

a.

the course takes place in Switzer­land;

b.

the course con­tent pre­pares stu­dents dir­ectly for a fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tion and cov­ers all or part of the re­quired com­pet­ences.

⁵ In jus­ti­fied ex­cep­tion­al cases, in par­tic­u­lar when Switzer­land lacks a cor­res­pond­ing pre­par­at­ory course, then the list may in­clude a pre­par­at­ory course that does not take place in Switzer­land or a pre­par­at­ory course offered by a pro­vider whose leg­al dom­i­cile is out­side of Switzer­land.

⁶ A pre­par­at­ory course ap­pear­ing in the list must be con­firmed an­nu­ally by the course pro­vider in or­der to ap­pear on the list in the fol­low­ing year.

SERI shall carry out spot checks to veri­fy the pro­vider’s in­form­a­tion un­der Art­icle 66g para­graphs 2 and 4 and Art­icle 66i para­graph 1.

¹ The course pro­vider shall is­sue a con­firm­a­tion form to the par­ti­cipant us­ing a tem­plate provided by SERI. This con­firm­a­tion form shall con­tain an ac­cur­ate rep­res­ent­a­tion of:

a.

total course fees;

b.

eli­gible course fees;

c.

the eli­gible course fees paid by the par­ti­cipant.

² The course pro­vider shall co­oper­ate in the case of spot checks.

³ If a course pro­vider makes false state­ments, does not use the tem­plate re­ferred to in para­graph 1, does not fol­low in­struc­tions or does not de­liv­er the sup­port­ing doc­u­ments re­quired dur­ing spot checks by the spe­cified dead­line, then SERI may re­move the rel­ev­ant course or all courses offered by the pro­vider from the list.

⁴ If a course pro­vider in­ten­tion­ally provides false in­form­a­tion, SERI may also bar the pro­vider from be­ing in­cluded in the list for an ad­di­tion­al year.

(Art. 56b and 67 VPETA)

¹ SERI may del­eg­ate the tasks re­ferred to in this Sec­tion to pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions.

² The said del­eg­a­tion of tasks shall take place by vir­tue of a per­form­ance agree­ment.

The re­duc­tion or with­hold­ing of fed­er­al sub­sidies men­tioned in Art­icle 58 VPETA shall de­pend on the sever­ity of the breach of ob­lig­a­tions on the part of the sub­sidy re­cip­i­ent. The re­duc­tion may not ex­ceed one-third of the fund­ing gran­ted.

(Art. 60 VPETA)⁴⁰

¹ Re­quests to make a VPET fund man­dat­ory may be sub­mit­ted by:

a.

pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions whose activ­it­ies are car­ried out at na­tion­al level, for the whole of Switzer­land and for all com­pan­ies in a giv­en eco­nom­ic branch; or

b.

pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions whose activ­it­ies are car­ried out at re­gion­al level for the com­pan­ies in the giv­en eco­nom­ic branch in the cor­res­pond­ing re­gion.

² The re­quest shall be sent to SERI in writ­ing and shall in­clude the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.

meas­ures to be en­cour­aged;

b.

how con­tri­bu­tions to the fund shall be ob­tained;

c.

name of the branch;

d.

if ne­ces­sary, re­gion­al bound­ar­ies;

e.

dis­tinc­tion between the ser­vices to be rendered by the fund in ques­tion com­pared to oth­er VPET funds.

³ The pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tion is deemed to have its own train­ing in­sti­tu­tions for the pur­poses of Art­icle 60 para­graph 4 let­ter b VPETA when it dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly of­fers VET, pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion and/or CET courses in the eco­nom­ic branch.

^{4 – 7} …⁴¹

(Art. 60 VPETA)

¹ The pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions shall bill af­fil­i­ated com­pan­ies for their con­tri­bu­tions.

⁴ Com­pan­ies that already provide ser­vices men­tioned in Art­icle 60 para­graph 6 VPETA shall pay the dif­fer­ence between the cost of the ser­vices already rendered and the con­tri­bu­tion to the man­dat­ory VPET fund. The dif­fer­ence shall be cal­cu­lated on the basis of the pro­por­tion of the con­tri­bu­tion cor­res­pond­ing to the ser­vices in ques­tion.

³ The pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tion shall is­sue a form­al de­mand for the con­tri­bu­tion if a com­pany so re­quests or does not pay.

⁴ A leg­ally val­id de­mand for a con­tri­bu­tion is equi­val­ent to an en­force­able court or­der in terms of Art­icle 80 of the Fed­er­al Act of 11 April 1889⁴³ on Debt En­force­ment and Bank­ruptcy.

(Art. 60 VPETA)

¹ The use of sums drawn from the VPET fund shall be checked on a reg­u­lar basis.

² Ac­count­ing-re­lated mat­ters for VPET funds de­clared man­dat­ory by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil is sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions con­tained in Art­icles 957–964 of the Swiss Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁴⁵.

³ The ac­counts of VPET funds de­clared man­dat­ory by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall be audited by an in­de­pend­ent audit­ing firm on a yearly basis. Aud­it­or’s Re­ports shall be sent to SERI for in­form­a­tion.

(Art. 68 VPETA)

On re­quest, SERI or a third party (un­der Art. 67 VPETA) will com­pare a for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tion with a cor­res­pond­ing Swiss vo­ca­tion­al or pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion if:

a.

the for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tion com­plies with na­tion­al leg­al or gov­ern­ment­al reg­u­la­tions and was is­sued by the cor­res­pond­ing au­thor­ity or in­sti­tu­tion of the coun­try of is­su­ance; and

b.

the hold­er of the for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tion demon­strates pro­fi­ciency in an of­fi­cial lan­guage of the Con­fed­er­a­tion that is re­quired in or­der to work in the pro­fes­sion con­cerned in Switzer­land.

(Art. 68 VPETA)

¹ SERI or a third party will re­cog­nise a for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tion as equi­val­ent to a cor­res­pond­ing Swiss qual­i­fic­a­tion for a reg­u­lated oc­cu­pa­tion or pro­fes­sion if the fol­low­ing cri­ter­ia are met:

a.

same level of train­ing;

b.

same dur­a­tion of train­ing;

c.

com­par­able train­ing con­tent;

d.

the for­eign train­ing pro­gramme cov­ers both the­or­et­ic­al and prac­tic­al as­pects or con­sid­er­able work ex­per­i­ence is in­volved.

² If the for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tion au­thor­ises the hold­er to carry out the giv­en oc­cu­pa­tion or pro­fes­sion in the coun­try of is­su­ance but the cri­ter­ia in para­graph 1 above are not met, SERI or a third party, if ne­ces­sary in co­oper­a­tion with ex­perts, shall de­cide on meas­ures to be taken to com­pensate for the dif­fer­ence between the for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tion and the cor­res­pond­ing Swiss qual­i­fic­a­tion (com­pens­at­ory meas­ures), namely in the form of an aptitude test or a spe­cial ad­apt­a­tion course. If com­par­is­on shows that the train­ing ob­tained in the for­eign coun­try is largely sim­il­ar to what the per­son would have ob­tained in Switzer­land, then there is no need for such com­pens­at­ory meas­ures to be taken.

³ The costs for com­pens­at­ory meas­ures are paid by the hold­er of the for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tion.

(Art. 68 VPETA)

¹ If the cri­ter­ia set out in Art­icle 69a para 1 let. a and b are met for a non-reg­u­lated oc­cu­pa­tion or pro­fes­sion, SERI or a third party will de­term­ine what level the for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tion holds with­in the Swiss edu­ca­tion sys­tem and will is­sue a level cer­ti­fic­ate.

² If all of the cri­ter­ia set out in Art­icle 69a para 1 are met, SERI or a third party shall re­cog­nise the for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tion.

(Art. 65 VPETA)

¹ SERI shall im­ple­ment this Or­din­ance, un­less re­spons­ib­il­ity for im­ple­ment­a­tion is as­signed else­where.

² SERI shall act as the point of con­tact for the mu­tu­al re­cog­ni­tion of qual­i­fic­a­tions by vir­tue of the fol­low­ing in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments:

a.

Bi­lat­er­al Agree­ment of 21 June 1999⁵² between the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion and the European Uni­on and its Mem­ber States on the Free Move­ment of Per­sons;

b.

Con­ven­tion of 4 Janu­ary 1960⁵³ Es­tab­lish­ing the European Free Trade As­so­ci­ation.

SERI fees charged for ren­der­ing first in­stance de­cisions and ser­vices shall be gov­erned by the SERI Or­din­ance of 16 June 2006⁵⁵ on Fees.

(Art. 65 para. 4 VPETA)

¹ Per­sons en­trus­ted with im­ple­ment­a­tion tasks may at­tend VPET-re­lated events. They may ob­tain in­form­a­tion and view doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to VPET.

² SERI may ob­tain in­form­a­tion from the Can­tons and third parties dir­ectly en­trus­ted with im­ple­ment­a­tion tasks.

(Art. 63 VPETA)

¹ SERI may with­draw qual­i­fic­a­tions that were ob­tained by il­li­cit means. The right to pro­sec­ute is re­served.

² The can­tons shall be no­ti­fied of the leg­al re­voc­a­tion of qual­i­fic­a­tions; any entries in the pub­lic re­gister shall be de­leted.⁵⁶

(Art. 73a VPETA)

¹ The con­duct of pro­ced­ures to re­cog­nise can­ton­al and in­ter­can­t­on­al qual­i­fic­a­tions un­der the pre­vi­ous law in the field of pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion in the health­care pro­fes­sions shall be del­eg­ated to the Swiss Red Cross.The de­tails of the trans­fer of du­ties shall be reg­u­lated in a pub­lic law agree­ment between SERI and the Swiss Red Cross.

² The fees in ac­cord­ance with the SERI Fees Or­din­ance of 16 June 2006⁵⁸ ap­ply to the pro­ced­ures for the re­cog­ni­tion of qual­i­fic­a­tions.

¹ The re­peal and amend­ment of pre­vi­ous le­gis­la­tion are set forth in the An­nex.

² SERI is re­spons­ible for re­peal­ing train­ing reg­u­la­tions based on Art­icle 12 of the Fed­er­al Act of 19 April 1978⁵⁹ on Vo­ca­tion­al Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing is­sued by the EAER.

(Art. 73 para. 2 VPETA)

¹ Qual­i­fic­a­tions awar­ded on com­ple­tion of up­per-sec­ond­ary level VET pro­grammes sub­ject to can­ton­al le­gis­la­tion shall be con­sidered fed­er­al if an in­ter­can­t­on­al agree­ment has been reached re­gard­ing said qual­i­fic­a­tions.

² The equi­val­ency of the qual­i­fic­a­tions men­tioned in para­graph 1 with qual­i­fic­a­tions sub­ject to new fed­er­al rules as well as the con­di­tions ap­ply­ing to the con­ver­sion of qual­i­fic­a­tions shall be es­tab­lished in cor­res­pond­ing VET or­din­ances.

³ Re­cog­ni­tion of courses of study and con­ver­sion of qual­i­fic­a­tions in fields that were pre­vi­ously sub­ject to in­ter­can­t­on­al le­gis­la­tion shall be handled by SERI on the basis of pre­vi­ous in­ter­can­t­on­al le­gis­la­tion un­til com­mence­ment of cor­res­pond­ing VET or­din­ances.

⁴ In the field of health care, re­cog­ni­tion of courses of study, con­ver­sion of Swiss qual­i­fic­a­tions and re­cog­ni­tion of for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tions shall be handled by the Swiss Red Cross un­til com­mence­ment of cor­res­pond­ing fed­er­al VET or­din­ances.

(Art. 73 VPETA)

¹ Work­place train­ers who do not fall with­in the scope of the Fed­er­al Act of 19 April 1978⁶⁰ on Vo­ca­tion­al Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing but who have trained learners for at least five years shall be con­sidered as qual­i­fied for the pur­poses of Art­icles 44 and 45.

² and ³ …⁶¹

⁴ Any fur­ther qual­i­fic­a­tions must be ob­tained with­in five years of SERI’s de­cision.

Hold­ers of the fol­low­ing qual­i­fic­a­tions meet the re­quire­ment es­tab­lished in Art­icle 46 para­graph 3 to teach sport: Fed­er­al Dip­loma I or II in Phys­ic­al Edu­ca­tion and Sports In­struc­tion, UAS De­gree in Sports In­struc­tion or Bach­el­or of Sci­ence in Sports is­sued by the Swiss Fed­er­al In­sti­tute of Sport Mag­glin­gen.

(Art. 73 para. 3 and 4 VPETA)

¹ Start­ing from the fifth year fol­low­ing com­mence­ment of VPETA, the Con­fed­er­a­tion’s share of fund­ing of the can­ton­al tasks men­tioned in Art­icle 53 para­graph 2 VPETA shall be provided in the form of a lump-sum pay­ment.

² For the first four years fol­low­ing com­mence­ment of VPETA, the fol­low­ing rule shall ap­ply:

a.

the can­ton­al tasks men­tioned in Art­icle 53 para­graph 2 VPETA, for which the Con­fed­er­a­tion has thus far provided sub­sidies by vir­tue of the fol­low­ing fed­er­al acts, shall con­tin­ue to be fun­ded by vir­tue of these acts:

1.

Fed­er­al Act of 19 April 1978⁶³ on Vo­ca­tion­al Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing,

2.

Fed­er­al Act of 29 April 1998⁶⁴ on Ag­ri­cul­ture,

3.

Fed­er­al Act of 4 Oc­to­ber 1991⁶⁵ on Forests,

4.

Fed­er­al Act of 19 June 1992⁶⁶ on Fin­an­cial Aid to Pro­fes­sion­al Edu­ca­tion In­sti­tu­tions Spe­cial­ised in So­cial Care;

b.

the re­main­ing can­ton­al tasks men­tioned in Art­icle 53 para­graph 2 VPETA shall re­ceive Con­fed­er­a­tion fund­ing to the ex­tent of avail­able re­sources men­tioned in Art­icle 53 para­graph 1 VPETA.

(Art. 73 para. 3 VPETA)

¹ Build­ing sub­sidy re­quests for which a space al­loc­a­tion plan in­clud­ing lay­out, pre­lim­in­ary design study or build­ing pro­ject was sub­mit­ted to SERI pri­or to com­mence­ment of VPETA shall be as­sessed on the basis of pre­vi­ous le­gis­la­tion.

² If a space al­loc­a­tion plan in­clud­ing lay­out or pre­lim­in­ary design study is sub­mit­ted, then the cor­res­pond­ing sub­sidies shall only be gran­ted sub­ject to the le­gis­la­tion in force at the time the said space al­loc­a­tion plan was sub­mit­ted if a build­ing pro­ject is sub­mit­ted no later than four years after com­mence­ment of VPETA.

³ If a build­ing sub­sidy was gran­ted, then the fi­nal ac­count for the pro­ced­ure com­pleted thus far must be sub­mit­ted no later than ten years after com­mence­ment of VPETA. If the fi­nal ac­count is sub­mit­ted bey­ond this dead­line, no fur­ther sub­sidies shall be giv­en.

⁴ Lease-re­lated sub­sidy re­quests for which a leased ob­jects table, a lease con­tract or a pre­lim­in­ary lease con­tract and lay­out were sub­mit­ted pri­or to com­mence­ment of VPETA, then the said re­quest shall be as­sessed on the basis of pre­vi­ous le­gis­la­tion. The cor­res­pond­ing sub­sidy shall be main­tained for no later than four years after com­mence­ment of VPETA.

⁵ The funds used for build­ing pro­jects and leases shall be drawn from the budget men­tioned in Art­icle 59 para­graph 1 let­ter a VPETA.

¹ Sub­sidies un­der Art­icles 66c and 66e may be re­ques­ted for pre­par­at­ory courses for fed­er­al pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­in­a­tions if the said pre­par­at­ory courses began after 1 Janu­ary 2017.

² SERI shall eval­u­ate the ef­fect­ive­ness of the pro­vi­sions of Sec­tion 6 of Chapter 8 (Art. 66a–66j) three years after com­mence­ment of the amend­ment of 15 Septem­ber 2017 and shall re­port its find­ings to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

This Or­din­ance comes in­to force on 1 Janu­ary 2004.