Thanks so much for sharing this with us, Urs!! This is super interesting. You definitely changed my view about education in Switzerland since I thought your system was similar to those in most countries, which is: elementary school - high school - college - master's degree and etc. 

I firmly believe that Apprenticeship is a great way for a young person to get exposure to the real world and understand early on what he or she enjoys doing. Many people in most countries end up realizing that what they've been learning in college is either futile or misleading. In Russia, sometimes a person receives 2 or 3 degrees to end up working as a receptionist or a sales clerk. As if the number of degrees guaranteed success in life..

In the US, I came across with some really bizarre courses, like, believe it or not: Fat Studies.. At least, in Russia, Education is cheap but in the US kids get very often tricked into spending a fortune to get a completely useless degree. Had they had some exposure to real jobs, they probably wouldn't have been fooled that easily.

Of course, it doesn't mean that all higher education experiences are bad nowadays. We still need doctors, engineers and scientists. But if more countries acquired similar educational practices to those in Switzerland, I'm sure the world would be a better place. 

I've heard that some companies are slowly starting to use apprenticeship and there are even some websites that help connect businesses with apprentices but still it's far from being widely accepted in most societies.