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

(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.