Big test ahead for introduction of common school curriculum

Voters in one Swiss canton this Sunday will decide whether efforts to introduce a single school curriculum nationwide will move forward as planned.  Under Switzerland’s federal structure, education falls under the jurisdiction of each of its 26 cantons. Over the past few years, however, the cantonal education heads have drawn up common syllabi – one for German-speaking cantons and another for French ones – after Swiss voters approved a constitutional article to harmonise education. But it’s the same Swiss style federalism that leaves the final decision on the common curriculum’s introduction to each canton. Whereas the transition to a single syllabus in French-speaking regions has already gone ahead, a vote in canton Aargau this Sunday could slow the implementation of the common curriculum, ‘Lehrplan 21’, for the 21 German-speaking cantons. It’s introduction is being fought at the ballot box by a group of teachers and representatives of parties on the right of the ...