The Zurich scholarship office behaves as if it were a social authority. But his task is different.
Whoever has the talent should be able to do any training in Switzerland. The reality is different.
There is a persistent myth in Swiss education policy: the myth of meritocracy. He or she is the one who only delivers the right performance, any training is open to him or her – no matter what social background he or she comes from.
The reality is a little different. What education someone does depends heavily on the position and income of the parents. The Swiss Science Council already thought so 2018 critical note. However, the effect can also be observed very locally in Zurich: the wealthier the residents of a community, the more pupils make the leap to the gymnasium after primary school.
The result: people who would actually be good apprentices end up in high school (and later at university) – and vice versa.
A degree is no better than an apprenticeship – just as an apprenticeship is no better than a degree. But in both branches of our education system, a fundamentally liberal principle should actually apply: talent, suitability and performance should determine the educational path – and not the parents’ wallets.
In order to guarantee this principle, there would even be a separate social work in Switzerland: the scholarship system. But there is something wrong with that.
A bureaucratic rat race
Not only does a patchwork of cantonal regulations, state and private funding pools make life difficult for the scholarship holders. Not only are some of the contributions set so low that they are below those of social assistance.
No, a central problem in the scholarship system is bureaucracy.
Its strange blossoms can currently be observed in the canton of Zurich. After a scholarship reform there, the processing of applications takes so long that you only get the notification for a training year when this year is almost over.
The result: Young apprentices and students, who should actually be concentrating on their education, shimmy from bill to bill, from part-time job to part-time job. Some also end up in an absurd bureaucratic hamster wheel in which the waiting time keeps getting longer – because new documents have to be submitted all the time.
Excessive control
The canton has already taken measures to deal with this problem and, for example, increased the number of staff in the grants department. But that doesn’t change the fundamental problem: Zurich’s scholarship system, like that in many other cantons, causes too much bureaucracy.
The reason for the staggeringly long waiting times is only apparently the most recent scholarship reform, the cost of which the canton clearly underestimated to introduce.
The real problem is the scholarship award itself. This takes place anew every year, although most training courses last longer than a year. The applicants have to provide such detailed information about their lives that it is almost a miracle that such a microscopic examination ever leads to any decisions being made at all.
The scholarship department behaves as if it were a social agency – and not part of the education system with its very different basic philosophy.
Scholarships are worthwhile – also financially
Scholarships are not handouts. They are investments in the future of young people who have all the prerequisites for an apprenticeship – apart from coming from the right family.
These investments also pay off in the long term. Those who have completed their training can contribute more to the economy and society and are less likely to be unemployed.
Scholarships should therefore be paid out quickly and for the entire duration of the training, instead of every centime being turned over ten times with enormous bureaucratic and financial effort. Zurich’s director of education, Silvia Steiner, likes to emphasize how important equal opportunities are to her. She could prove it by reducing the bureaucracy of the scholarship system.
This is the only way that the scholarship holders can plan with certainty. This is the only way this investment will ultimately pay off for society and the economy.