School entrance exams ‘promote inequality’: Swiss teaching boss

Minder questions early selection in the school system Keystone-SDA

The president of the Swiss Association of Head Teachers wants to scrap entrance exams to secondary schools.

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In an interview with the SonntagsBlick newspaper, Thomas Minder questioned why the two-track secondary school system should test pupils’ academic abilities so early.

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“We know from science that every transition in school reinforces social inequalities,” he said.

The head teachers’ association is therefore of the opinion that there should be no selection at the start of secondary school. Some Swiss cantons already manage the transition without exams.

Minder favours selection at a later stage towards the end of school and heterogeneous classes with different levels of difficulty.

He also criticised the training of teachers as inadequate in the face of growing demands. Teachers need to have social, emotional and communication skills in addition to specialised knowledge. “It is a mission impossible to achieve this in the three years of study,” Minder told the newspaper.

He called for at least four years of training and a Master’s degree for all teachers. “Politically, this would be very difficult to push through because the costs would rise. But it would pay off in the long term,” he added.

The shortage of teachers could be alleviated despite longer training programmes by integrating prospective teachers into school operations before they complete their studies.

Adapted from German by AI/mga

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