Schools’ Access to ICT – Stage 3

In 2002, Switzerland had one of the largest gaps between computer use at home and in the school.  In order to enhance the computer use at school, a 5 year nationwide project was launched in 2002.  The goal of the project was to equip schools with computers and high speed internet, produce suitable e-content, and train expert teachers to train colleagues and students. 

With its second framework, the CDIP’s strategy aims at promoting production of digitalized pedagogical contents, ensuring their quality with reference to cantonal and regional curricula and enabling access via the Swiss Educational Server. The objectives are:

• to encourage networking and collaboration by producers (production);
• to give access to existing content via a benchmarking, description and evaluation system (access);
• to compile and formalize pedagogical and didactic experience in each discipline, as well as examples of good practice;
• to train teachers and lecturers;
• to devise a policy for production and quality assurance for digitized learning content, while clarifying the distribution of roles among the actors concerned.

The Digital School Library Project, launched in 2006 by the Swiss Institute for Educational and Cultural Media (educa.ch) and mandated by the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK), is aimed at creating an interactive database bringing together educational resources in an interdisciplinary manner. The project is part of the area of “electronic resources for teaching and learning” and has three themes:

• The dissemination and exchange of information
• Developing a framework for implementing electronic resources in teaching and learning
• Establishing partnerships with content providers.

The opening of the Digital School Library was expected towards the end of 2009.

Almost all teachers have a computer for teaching purposes.  At the primary level (97.9%) and secondary level (99.9%) the teachers are exposed to computers for their studies.

Enhancing Education with ICTs – Stage 4                                              

Students at selective schools have been given an Apple iPhone 3G for them to use in and out of school as a part of their personal learning environment between August 2009 and July 2011. The project is being supervised and evaluated by the Institut für Medien und Schule (IMS) of the Pädagogische Hochschule Zentralschweiz - Schwyz (PHZ Schwyz). It is sponsored by Swisscom and does not entail any extra costs for school, pupils or parents.

The schools online use a center of excellence use of digital media in schools and other educational activities.  In 1996 the club was founded schools on line - with the aim of all schools in Germany to provide the infrastructure for access to the digital media world is ready.  With the successful implementation of this founding mission, the task profile of the club several years ago has changed dramatically today, supports schools to the network e. V. schools with projects, themes, services or training in finding their way in the global network and the opportunities for new forms of communication to use self-determined.

With the successful implementation of this founding mission, the task profile of the club several years ago has changed dramatically: today supports schools to the network e. V. schools with projects, themes, services or training in finding their way in the global network and the opportunities for new forms of communication to use self-determined.

Developing the ICT Workforce – Stage 4

Switzerland is one of the leading countries in computer applications. Many of these applications are embedded in top products or services of Switzerland's key industries (e.g. banks, insurances, telecommunication, power systems, chemistry, watches, transportation, tourism etc.). In all such enterprises interdisciplinary research and development ranks high and is heavily based on information technology (IT). Proper IT research (= Computer Science), however, exists in Switzerland only in universities (including ETH Zurich and EPFL Lausanne) and in a few industry labs; around 100 professors and their assistants work today in well equipped Computer Science departments.

Although there is coordination between institutions, there is no central management. The scientific network between these IT-research communities is supported by SARIT, the Swiss Association for Research in Information Technology.

Even though Switzerland is a small country, it offers IT curricula at 9 universities: 2 Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Zürich and EPF Lausanne) and 8 cantonal (local) universities (Basel, Bern, Geneva, Fribourg/Freiburg, Lausanne, Neuchâtel, Zürich, and Italian Switzerland ). Teaching is mainly in French in Geneva, Lausanne (BSc) and Neuchâtel, German in Bern, Basel and Zürich, and bilingual in Fribourg/Freiburg, i.e. depending on the teacher. Advanced courses, especially at the Master level, are generally taught in English, as many of the teachers are not natives of the local language, and it is also considered most important to train the students to use the international language of Computer Science.

In Switzerland, the higher education system at University-level consists of ten cantonal Universities, two federal Institutes of Technology and seven Universities of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschulen), as well as the recently founded Schools for Teacher Education and many Advanced Vocational Colleges. Private universities only offer postgraduate studies.

In order to get into an accredited university, a federally recognized school leaving certificate also known as a “Matura” or the equivalent foreign certificate is awarded and this entitles the holder to study at university level. Admission depends on the specific university. And good knowledge of the language of instruction is a prerequisite.

Many Nobel prizes have been awarded to Swiss scientists, for example to the world-famous physicist Albert Einstein in the field of physics who developed his theory of relativity while working in Bern. More recently Vladimir Prelog, Heinrich Rohrer, Richard Ernst, Edmond Fischer, Rolf Zinkernagel and Kurt Wüthrich received Nobel prizes in the sciences. In total, 113 Nobel Prize winners stand in relation to Switzerland and the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded 9 times to organizations residing in Switzerland.

Top Computer Science Schools in Switzerland

1. EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne) School of Computer Science and Communication systems is the number one computer science school in Switzerland. It offers BSC, Masters and PHD in Computer Science and Communication Systems. The BSC program teaches the basics of Information Technology and their mathematical foundations. The following specializations are also offered in the MSc Program: bio-computing, foundations of software, signals and images, industrial informatics, internet computing, computer engineering and service science. EPFL also offers an internship program that sends its students travel to all four corners of the world to spend six months in the computer industry or in a foreign university.
2. The University of Basel offers a Bachelor of Science with Major in Computer Science, Bioinformatics, Geoinformatics and Business Information Systems. The students can also obtain a Master of Science in Computer Science.
3. The University of Bern is also a highly ranked school which also offers two different programs: Computer Science and Applied Mathematics and Information Systems.
4. The University of Fribourg also ranks highly amongst the Switzerland universities. It offers programs of Bachelor and Master both in Computer Science and in Information Systems and Information Management.
5. The University of Geneva offers Bachelor and Master in three different departments in Schools of Science (Computer Science), Economic and Social Sciences (Information Systems), and Literature (Informatics for Humanities). The “Centre Universitaire d’Informatique” is a unique Center which integrates in an interdisciplinary way the various trends of informatics.
6. The University of Zurich offers a Bachelor of Science in Informatics with Specialization in Information Systems and a Master of Science in Informatics with Specializations in Information Systems, Software Systems, Multimodal and Cognitive Systems.