adding some more context around from our own expericen with Zug public schools and also recent changes in the selection process for high School opportunities Gymnasium, Fachmittelschule, Wirtschaftmitelschule..
Schools of canton Zug in trouble due to financial burden for canton Zug
The canton Zug needs to save money and has passed a 258 point plan to do so and not have to increase taxes. This was reported also in the press last spring of 2015..
http://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/finanzausgleich-macht-fitnesskur-noetig-1.18509165
http://www.srf.ch/news/regional/zentralschweiz/zuger-regierung-schnuert-umfangreiches-sparpaket
Further, on the canton's main website about schools, it is bragging about having one of the best schools in the world, http://www.zg.ch/international/english/individuals/education .
A very bold statement indeed that is of course not backed up with any statistics and just the fact that government officials post something on their main website really worries me.
I have not seen any other state or country that posts such things. In fact, my children are US-Swiss dual citizen and fluent in two languages. They have to learn English as a foreign language and of course don't like to learn English with beginners and non-native speaking language teachers. Right, the teachers are Swiss with Swiss accents it is sometimes hard for my kids not to laugh when they try to mimic am Australian accent. That would be OK and understandable I think but then don't write that Zug has one of the best schools in the world. Given the importance of this state with international companies, can't you just hire English native teachers, at least for the kids that want to do this right? I guess not, espcecially now where the canton has financial issues.
It is a fact though and recently also reported in the news with an interview with the responsible Regierungsrat, Mr. Stephan Schleiss, that the gymnasium level is mostly occupied by girls nowadays. The reason according to him is that girls just seem to like languages better. In my oldest son's class, there are now 4 boys left out of 24 students.
This of course is not just Mr. Schleiss' fault but more of an overall issue with an outdated and non European Union compliant Swiss school system which at that level is based on liberal arts mostly.
It seems more important to study philosophy or translate and interpretate a German poem from the middle age and understand germanistics. For example and I can judge with my own son at that level, it is almost impossible to pass if a kid is good at sciences subjects but not strong in German and French. If Zug would have the best schools, why would it not support more scientific interested children? As another example, how many employees at Roche, a large Swiss pharma and medical devices company in Rotkreuz speak French and how important is this for this canton? How many non-native French teachers do we really need here compared to engineers etc? How many French speaking tourists do we even see in Cham at the lake strolling? Most I hear is Chinese and Russian lately. We are geographically closer to Canton Ticino anyway but no one forces children to learn Italian. I am even convinced, that there would be less issues at the Swiss national government if the spoken language would be English, I am certain that Mr. Schleiss might not even disagree here.. right ?
But back to the main topic of this article..
For the money savings plan of canton Zug, it will mean not just bigger classes in schools now but in parallel, it appears that the government is trying to make it harder for children to get into the gymnasium/ matura or the business and teaching schools level which would give access to Swiss and European universities. A couple of years ago, a 6th grader or for the short term gymnasium in the second year of secondary school needed a 5.2 out of 6.0 in the major subjects to be admitted to this level. This was recently changed and no other canton I am aware of has this solution. So why does the canton Zug run it own way (in Swiss Term "KantoĢnligeist")?
It is now up entirely to the main teacher to make a decision in what school the child should go. Even if the child has absolute perfect grades, the teacher can still come up with some reasoning like that the child is not ready and propose a lower level school which means that the public school education ends at age 15. One of our friend's son has supposedly an average of about 5.5 but in a recent discussion with the teacher, she recommended that he should not be going to gymnasium as he seems immature.
The parents have the right to object and the child will be able to take a test a few weeks after the decision has been taken. My own research and direct requests from the responsible people in the government of Zug confirmed my fear. I have also contacted one school particularly and the office of administration was not aware that any child has passed the test afterwards. The canton Zug does not hand out tests from prior years for self study nor gives any information what level and details will be tested. There are also no classes offered for preparation to these tests.
It is in my opinion a pretty clever system where now the government can demand from the 11 towns in Zug how many children can attend one of the cantonal schools and limit the attendance.
It is further just scary and unacceptable to me that the decision will be up to one teacher now.
We had the situation that my oldest son was told by his teacher at the end of second year in secondary school that he will never pass the gymnasium. She told him that he is not "Kanti Material".
Even though he had an average of 5.25 in this school year at that time, he was not allowed to be admitted to Gymnasium in Zug. I think a lot had to do that his German was a bit behind as he moved to Switzerland at age 8 and has English mother tongue. Anyway,we took then the decision to enroll him to the gymnasium of Canton Lucerne whith the burden of paying over CHF 20k per year out of state tuition. I wanted to give him at least one semester to proof himself. If it did not work, OK then, at least he tried.
He is now in his final year and just finished his thesis with the Swiss national government agency NAGRA on the research of storing nuclear waste of power plants for the long time safety. He actually admits that he could only do his research paper due to the fact that his English is on a superior Level. Even the documents he studied from Nagra were in English.. (again pointing out the non-sense of French forcing in Swiss High-Schools.
So, what did we learn from this? Number one, the teachers really have no clue and now are likely mandated by a state in trouble to cut down kids from going to advanced schools. Also, teachers just make up their own tests, nothing is standardized here and what I see with three kids here in local schools, a grade given can easily be plus or minus worth.
The canton of Zug has many expats, international schools are very expensive and even full as I just requested admission for my middle son. If you are planning to send your kids here in public schools, especially when they are little, it is a fun and great experience. But if you have plans to stay longer and would like your child to be in a school level that is acknowledged by the EU or USA for that matter, please be aware that this door is only open to the very best and is very hard for children with international background. If they master that level though, afterwards the Swiss universities are open to them..
So if you move to Zug, do this for the low taxes but be very careful about getting into the local school system unless this is a long term effort and you plan to stay here.