80% of Swiss secondary Students do not qualify for Gymnasium (High School). Only the top 20% with highest IQ pass stringent selection, testing and a half year High School trial period. Swiss High Schools proudly restrict High School to those students considered a worthy investment for University study.

Swiss IQ researcher worries that 1/3 of High School students have IQ of under 112.5 and should be at the High School. Switzerland expects a return on the high investment of schooling students up to University Graduation. To say it very Un-PC:

Swiss proudly restrict High School to top 20%,

(top 18% in Zürich)

keep dumb students out of High School and College

Those 80% deemed unfit to successfully finish demanding Universities are steered towards “lesser” schools, a 3-4 year apprenticeship (Berufslehre) and possibly professional colleges. Swiss salaries are among the highest in the world, and Swiss have a highly qualified work force.

“In Switzerland some kids in High School don’t belong there because they have only average Intelligence”, says IQ researcher Elsbeth Stern in the “Tages-Anzeiger”. She has tested the IQ at several high schools and calculated that many students do not reach the theoretical minimum IQ of 112.6.

More than a third of the students flunked the test. “You have to look carefully, who goes on the academic track,” says Stern. “For he who seeks an academic career later, later will have problems.”

Swiss High School is specifically for those who plan to study at the University. Traditional Swiss education has three tracks. Elementary, intermediate, and college. The Swiss do not suffer from the idea that 80% of the population should be among the top 20%.

In Switzerland, only about 20 percent of children make it to high school. In Germany it is around 50 percent. According to the intelligence researcher, it is important that only those go to high school and later to the University, who can later give back maximum benefits to society. “It does not make sense, if a less intelligent person becomes physician and the more intelligent one a medical assistant.”

Therefore Stern argues for an IQ test – in addition to the regular entrance examination. “But not everywhere, but only in individual cases.” [source]

In the interest of society

Here she is generally not to exclude, but to targeted promotion. “Some students have hidden potential,” says Stern. This potential may not be detected, for instance because their German language skills are deficient due to a migration background.

Or a socially unskilled, or frustrated failing High IQ student. This is very laudable. Very un-PC. Nobody speaks of quotas for low IQ populations. Rather they want to find High IQ talent that remained undetected.

A better selection of Gymnasium (HS) students would be for the interests of society. “After all, society pays for the education.” [source]

The Swiss Education system | Wikipedia

At the end of primary school (or at the beginning of secondary school), pupils are separated according to their capacities and career-intentions in several (often three) sections. Students who aspire to an academic career enter high schools (named “Gymnasium” or “Kantonsschule”) to be prepared for further studies and the matura (normally obtained after 12 or 13 years of school at the age of 18/19). Students intending to pursue a trade or vocation complete only three additional years before entering Vocational Educations which are regulated by federal law and are based on a cooperation of private business offering educational job-positions and public schools offering obligatory school-lessons complementary to the on the job-education. This so-called “dual system” splitting academic and vocational training has its continuation in the higher education system. While the academic training leads to the matura and free admission to Universities, successfully completed vocational education give access to third level of practical education, the Fachhochschule. In the science literacy assessment of PISA, 15-year-old students in Switzerland had the 16th highest average score of 57 countries.

Blick is a very popular newspaper, but the above summary is very concise. A more reputable newspaper has a longer interview, as follows.

Children should learn what is within their possibilities. And parents should not think that they control the intellectual development of their child and can shape it by exerting pressure. Children should lead a self-determined life and do what is really important to them and what they are gifted in. To optimally develop intelligence within their genetic talents, a child needs, above all, emotional security and verbal conversational attention. Source: In Swiss High Schools are children who should not be there (English) [German Original]

No IQ tests for Zürich High School students

(because the admission tests give the same results as specific IQ tests)

follows in our next post ……..

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