Swiss Schools Abroad Threatened By Government Cuts

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) The Swiss government's austerity measures risk hitting Swiss schools abroad. If these schools disappear, it would deprive Switzerland of an influential international network that helps spread Swiss culture and education, warns Serge Künzler, director of the schools' umbrella organisation. This content was published on May 5, 2025 - 09:00 7 minutes

As a correspondent at the Federal Palace for SWI swissinfo, I report on federal politics for the Swiss Abroad. After studying at the Academy of Journalism and Media at the University of Neuchâtel, my career path initially took me to various regional media, working in the editorial offices of Journal du Jura, Canal 3 and Radio Jura bernois. Since 2015, I have been working in the multilingual editorial department of SWI swissinfo, where I continue to practise my profession with passion.

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There is tension in the corridors of the 17 Swiss schools abroadExternal link , spread across ten countries and three continents. They are threatened by the government's cost-cutting programme , which aims to save between CHF3 billion ($3.65 billion) and CHF4.5 billion a year from 2027 onwards to rebalance federal finances.

One of the proposed measures is to cut cultural funding by CHF18.4 million by 2028. If approved by parliament, this would have a big impact on Swiss schools abroad, whose budget would be cut by CHF7.9 million.

The group of expertsExternal link who drew up the savings plan believes that“a reduction here seems possible given the large residual credits accumulated in recent years, partly because the number of Swiss children attending these schools abroad has fallen”.

Kai Reusser / swissinfo 'Disproportionate cuts'

Serge Künzler, director of educationsuisse, the umbrella association for Swiss schools abroad, disagrees.“These cuts hit Swiss schools abroad hard and would affect them disproportionately,” he says.

Künzler points out that Swiss schools abroad would bear 43% of the cuts imposed on the culture ministry, even though they account for only 8.5% of its total budget.

This is all the more difficult to swallow since schools under the educationsuisse umbrella already had to make savings of CHF5.6 million as part of the 2024-2028 culture plan.

The consequences of further cuts could be disastrous, Künzler says.“We can expect some schools to close, or lose their Swissness,” he warns.

Federal support covers only 20% of the schools' expenditure, which is funded mainly by tuition fees, but Künzler can't see how the subsidies cut could be offset by other funding sources.“The cantons already help us, for example with the purchase of teaching materials and funds for continuous training,” he says.“What's more, they are also under pressure from the federal savings package.”

The team at the Swiss school in Bangkok, which teaches some 340 pupils. educationsuisse Most pupils are not Swiss

Swiss schools abroad were all founded by German-speaking Swiss Abroad. As a result, they are traditionally German-speaking. Only the school in Bogotá has a French-Spanish section.

Originally, the aim was to meet the needs of expatriates who wanted to offer their children a quality Swiss education. The first such school was opened in Bergamo, Italy, in 1892, for the children of Legler cotton mill employees. In the 1930s and 1940s, Swiss schoolsabroad also represented an alternative to German schools, which were marked by Nazism.

Today, the aim of Swiss schools around the world is still to strengthen ties between young Swiss people abroad and their homeland. However, most of their students now come from the host country or other nationalities. Non-Swiss make up 80% of the nearly 8,000 students, Serge Künzler points out.

There is widespread interest in these schools, which have a reputation for quality and are distinguished by their multilingual teaching (courses are always taught in at least two languages). The Swiss government also sees them as a way of forging good relations with the host country and attracting highly qualified students and staff to Switzerland, as it states in a report.

More More Swiss schools abroad struggle with teacher shortage

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