Worldwide internships for graduates of the Swiss vocational baccalaureate in collaboration the cantons of Zurich and Vaud
The NextStep program, initiated by the cantons of Zurich and Vaud in collaboration with Swissnex, offers young graduates of the Swiss vocational and educational training (VET) with a federal vocational baccalaureate (FVB) internships abroad lasting 3 to 12 months. Financial support for their internships abroad is provided by the national exchange and mobility agency Movetia.
The program aims to bring together innovative and successful companies around the world that are interested in hiring young and talented Swiss graduates for 3- 12 months. The VET candidates have at least 4 years of working experience as part of their vocational and educational training. NextStep enables them to enhance their professional skills with a view to their career path. Furthermore, it enables them to discover highly demanding professional practices, open up to different professional cultures and develop their soft skills.
The Pilot Year
The VET candidates are participating in the pilot project to start in August 2024 in 4 different destinations: Brazil, India, Japan, and the United States of America.
The Swiss VET system enables young people to enter the labor market and ensures that there are enough skilled workers and managers in the future. It has a high labour market relevance and is an integral part of the education system, spanning both upper-secondary and tertiary level.
The Swiss VET system is based on the duality between theory and practice. At upper-secondary level, this duality can be seen in the distribution of training content across different learning locations: classroom instruction takes place at a vocational school (theory) and workplace training takes place at a host company (practice). For some occupations, there is a third learning location, which is designed to complement the other two: these branch courses take place at a branch training centre. At tertiary level, this duality is expressed through a combination of classroom instruction and the previous and current work experience of participants.
The role of Swissnex
As gate-openers, each Swissnex location joining the project endorses both a consulting and connecting role on the project for strategic questions like:
• which economic sector can potentially be interested in participating in the project.
• how to identify interested firms and find the relevant person to contact.
• how to reach important stakeholders in economic chambers, or other institutions at the local destination in order to ensure the growth of the partner companies’ network.
Furthermore the involved Swissnex locations will help the candidates become immersed in the local cultures and will be the link between the participants, the cantons of Vaud and Zurich and the involved companies.
A letter of intent was signed between Canton Vaud, Canton Zurich, and Swissnex to strengthen the cooperation in the field of international mobility projects for young people in VET.
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