Philipp Gonon - Swiss Vocational and Professional Education and Training (VPET)

For learners in the “banking” branch, the focus is on activities at the bank counter and in the back office (cf. the portrait of Gioia Bolter, p. 24). The branch courses are offered by the Center for Young Professionals in Banking (CYP) in Zurich. The banks can also send their learners to the CYP for the “specialist instruction” (Fachunterricht) to relieve themselves of the burden of carrying out certain training tasks.

This specialist instruction is a voluntary service of the banks. It replaces (in full or in part) the theoretical part of instruction which larger banks used to offer their learners on an in-house basis.

Learners at the ETH

The Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zurich) offers academic study programmes to 18,000 students – but also trains 170 learners in VET programmes.

Interested young people can apply to the ETH for 13 different VET programmes, including Electronics Engineer, Federal VET Diploma (Elektroniker/in EFZ), Specialist in Facility Management, Federal VET Diploma (Fachmann/Fachfrau Betriebsunterhalt EFZ), IT Technician, Federal VET Diploma (Informatiker/in EFZ), Commercial Employee, Federal VET Diploma (Kaufmann/Kauffrau EFZ), Laboratory Assistant, Federal VET Diploma (Laborant/in EFZ), Mediamatics Technician, Federal VET Diploma (Mediamatiker/in EFZ), Physics Laboratory Technician, Federal VET Diploma (Physiklaborant/in EFZ), Animal Caretaker, Federal VET Diploma (Tierpfleger/in EFZ).

The apprenticeship places are very popular. In 2012, 1,100 interested people applied for the 60 available apprenticeship places. The person responsible estimates that up to 40 per cent would have been suitable for the apprenticeship occupation for which they applied.

In the most important occupations, the ETH runs company-based trade schools with 44 training laboratories (Lehrlabors) with professional trainers; the learners work here for around 35 per cent of their apprenticeship period. This means they are not required to attend branch courses. The remaining two thirds of the time, they work in the workshops and laboratories of the ETH or in administration. Around half of ETH learners attend general education courses in preparation for the Federal Vocational Baccalaureate Examination during their apprenticeship. Twice during the VET programme there is a “Bergwald” (Mountain Forest) project week for them in which they do charitable work. Towards the end of the apprenticeship they can take part in job application training.

The VPET concerns at the ETH are represented by the human resources (HR) department and by a VPET committee. Members are professors, works managers, professional trainers, the head of HR and the head of VPET, but also two learners.

PORTRAIT OF GIOIA BOLTER

Gioia Bolter, 18,

is in her third apprenticeship year as a Commercial Employee, Federal VET Diploma

clear

Welcome camps, CYP and specific aspects

Gioia Bolter is doing her VET programme at the large bank UBS. The training is well structured, there are a welcome camp and specific in-house aspects.

When Gioia Bolter switched on the computer on the first day of her apprenticeship there was already a lot going on. There were more than 20 e-mails sent to her UBS address, welcome greetings and information sheets, stock market information and a first WBT. Gioia Bolter did not know what this abbreviation meant, but she was exempt from “web-based training”. She was a learner, still a bit nervous and still right at the start. Well, almost.

Right at the start, a week previously, Gioia Bolter had been at the welcome camp, which UBS held for the 30 commercial learners in the region of Eastern Switzerland. Here, over the course of three days, there was information on the themes of working hours and the intranet, people discussed expectations and changes, “behaviour and appearance” was a theme: rules on clothing, “How do I come across?” and “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. With its camp, UBS made a good first impression on the prospective commercial employee. She felt accepted and found out how her training is structured.

As part of her VET programme Gioia Bolter is passing through various departments at the bank. In the first six months, she worked in Heiden where she grew up and therefore knew a lot of customers. Then followed activities in other regional branches, Speicher, Teufen, Herisau and St. Gallen, always supervised by local practical trainers. “I discovered that the large bank UBS also has small branches. Speicher was the smallest with four employees.” Gioia Bolter thinks the order of the departments makes sense: at the counter for small payment transactions, later private customers with mortgage enquiries, for example, currently customers with considerable assets and corporate customers. Here, it is a matter of investments and loans or the issue of compliance: which business transactions are too risky? This series of themes is similar for all learners in the banking sector. It enables coordination with the branch courses and the in-house training programmes.

Gioia Bolter attends the branch courses at the “Center for Young Professionals in Banking”. Here, she meets colleagues from other banks and finds out that there are different banking cultures. On ten individual days per year, the young people are given theoretical insights into topics such as payment transactions, deposit-taking business, investments and loans. Teaching materials make learning easier, with tablets handed out rather than books; the learning contents are now presented in an interactive form. In the in-house training programmes of UBS, contents specific to the bank are also learned in detail and practised. These “specific aspects” are for teaching standardised knowledge to the around 270 commercial learners in the whole of Switzerland who begin an apprenticeship every year at UBS and to enable them to practise these aspects in role play – there are eleven such days over the course of three years. This relieves the burden on the practical trainers at the bank. Finally, Gioia Bolter goes to vocational school for two days a week. She attends a class to prepare for the Federal Vocational Baccalaureate Examination, now together with commercial learners from other branches such as insurance, travel agencies and federal administration.

Gioia Bolter likes working in the bank, she already noticed this during the taster days she attended while she was choosing a profession. The upper-secondary level baccalaureate school she had decided on did not meet her expectations and she dropped out after a successful first year. She successfully passed the selection procedure of UBS. That does not go without saying: there are 10 to 15 young people applying for every apprenticeship place, around a quarter of these are invited to an interview. Whether Gioia Bolter will also overcome the hurdle to join UBS’s in-house support programme for the best graduates of the VET programme remains to be seen.

Cooperative training associations are repeatedly confused with host company networks. A comparison of Figures 1-2 and 1-3 (host company network, p. 20) and 1-4 (cooperative training association, see below) reveals differences.

Figure 1-4: Cooperative training association. Representation by the authors