Federal popular initiative "Reorganization of student financing"

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The federal popular initiative “Reorganization of Student Financing ” , also known as the Lausanne Model , was a Swiss popular initiative aimed at financing the costs of training and living for mature (i.e. over 20 years old at the time) schoolchildren.

The initiative was launched by the Association of Swiss Student Unions (VSS) at the beginning of the 1970s. With the “referendum for the creation of repayable training finance for adults”, the VSS demanded “a kind of wage for all students”. The equal opportunities created by the model should especially benefit working class children . The popular initiative came about on June 1, 1972 and was recommended for rejection by the Swiss Parliament on March 22, 1974 with 78 to 5 votes ("against the background of the gloomy economic prospects opening up oil crisis "), whereupon the VSS on June 20, 1974 withdrew. “However, the national council commission demanded,“ in order to enforce effective equal opportunities ”, with a motion a revision of the grant article (Art. 27 quater BV ) […]. In Basel and Bern , students launched petitions to index the scholarships [...]. "

Initiative text

The initiative is in the form of a general suggestion and has the following wording:

Article 27 ff

1. Every responsible Swiss citizen who studies or continues to train at a teaching institution is entitled to contributions from a federal fund (foundation) to fully cover reasonable training and living costs.

2. The recipients contractually undertake, after a reasonable period of time, to make a reimbursement to the fund commensurate with their financial strength (income and asset situation).

3. The implementation of this regulation is a federal matter.

4. The entitlement to public grants, which are distributed in the event of parental need, only lapses for those who are entitled to receive contributions under the new system. The cantons have to adapt their scholarship laws, taking into account a transitional period, to the federal regulations to be created.

5. The recipients must not be disadvantaged in any way during their training period compared to non-recipients.

6. To finance the institution, contributions from the Confederation, the cantons according to their financial strength as well as the reimbursement funds (according to No. 2) are to be provided.

7. The federal government issues implementing provisions on the recognition of educational establishments whose users are entitled to contributions, on the determination of the contributions (per year and at a maximum per recipient) and the entitlement (exclusion of entitlement to benefits in the case of favorable income and financial situation of the recipient regardless of that of the Parents). It also issues provisions on reimbursement and the conditions under which foreign recipients can be treated as equivalent to Swiss citizens. The cantons, representatives of the teaching institutions and representatives of the students must be heard in advance.

Background: The VSS scholarship policy

"[T] he VSS has always been a driver in improving the scholarship situation and in harmonizing the cantons". In the late 1950s, the association represented “the project of a“ reversed AHV ”: All students (regardless of need and performance) should have the right to scholarships during their studies. During the years of gainful employment, they and their employers should then pay contributions as part of their wages into an appropriate scholarship fund (Koller, Elmar 1964, pp. 48–49). The so-called Lausanne model, for which the VSS launched a popular initiative at the beginning of the 1970s , but withdrew it after it was rejected in parliament , then became known in particular . The Lausanne model provided for student financing for all students without any repayment obligation (VSS 1970; cf. also Jeanbourquin, Daniel 1986). Another popular initiative launched in 1991 failed to materialize and the most recent initiative to harmonize the scholarship system was rejected in 2015. "

Content of the postulate "Lausanne model"

With the Lausanne model, the VSS wanted to guarantee "university students, [...] graduates of the second educational path , the higher technical institutes, the social schools, the conservatories, the schools for medical support staff, the advanced seminars, etc." with half-yearly contributions the subsistence level, regardless of parents' financial resources. Firstly, this parent-independent study financing should have enabled adult students to reach financial maturity, since scholarships were only an addition to parental expenses. Second, the VSS found it unfair that parents should bear the brunt of their children's study and living costs, even though they “do not benefit more from the education of their offspring than other members of society”. With the Lausanne model, the VSS demanded that the “buyers” of science finance the education instead of the parents. The third argument in favor of the Lausanne model was the inequality between students and professionals for the VSS: "Parents of children who would be able to enter middle school often send them to an apprenticeship in order to be financially relieved as quickly as possible." Equal opportunities created by the Lausanne model should have benefited working-class children who were underrepresented in secondary schools due to systematic disadvantage. In terms of inequality of opportunity, according to the VSS, in addition to the parents' fear of financial stress, the stricter upbringing of working-class parents due to difficult living conditions also played a role, which left the children less scope for free decision-making; In addition, there would be colloquial language-related difficulties that would lead to school failure.

With the Lausanne model, the VSS wanted to gain experience of how a second initiative, the so-called " Equal Opportunities Initiative ", could have started, which would have far exceeded the Lausanne model postulate. It can therefore be seen as a forerunner of the scholarship initiative.

The Lausanne model stipulated that a few years after completing their training, the recipients would pay back a contribution based on their income and assets to the federal government and the cantons (the sponsors of the foundation to be set up). This personal contribution should “prevent high-income professions from being additionally supported by state training funds - those who earn above-average earnings thanks to their studies must at least reimburse the related training contribution to the fund, which is largely fed from taxpayers’s money. Conversely, professions that also require a long training period, but are considered low-income, are protected in that their representatives do not have to pay any or at most a partial refund. "

VSS publications on scholarship policy

Various documents and memoranda of the VSS show that the association was “time and again a driver in improving the scholarship situation and in harmonizing the cantons”; For example, in the 1970s and 1980s the VSS published B .:

  • Swiss list of scholarships. Catalog des fonds de bourses suisse . Gebr. Leemann & Co. AG., Zurich 1947, OCLC 77873140 (Earlier and later editions of the Swiss List of Scholarships were published by the Swiss Association for Vocational Advice and Apprentice Care ( 1923, 1928, 1940 and 1961) and by Pro Juventute (1973)).
  • Memorandum to the Swiss Federal Council with the aim of promoting the attendance of higher schools and vocational training . Bern 1961, OCLC 602290380 .
  • Peter Widmer: Lausanne model (=  documentation VSS . No. 10 ). Information service of the Association of Swiss Student Unions , Bern 1969, OCLC 78979298 (33 pages).
  • Peter Widmer: Lausanne model: Project to a new study financing for mature students (=  Series of the VSS . No. 1 ). VSS / UNES, Bern 1970, OCLC 178807358 (142 pages).
  • Lukas Hottinger: Parent-independent study financing: fundamental considerations on the “Lausanne model” . In: Orbis Scientiarum . No. 1 , 1970, p. 39-44 .
  • Lausanne model coordination group: Lausanne model: Project of a new type of student finance . In: trade union review: quarterly journal of the Swiss trade union federation . tape 63 , no. 7-8 , 1971, pp. 214-218 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-354515 .
  • Series The Scholarship System :
Thomas Fehlmann, Werner G. Hoffmann: The scholarship system . Bern 1974, OCLC 602477142 .
Thomas Fehlmann: The Scholarship System 2 . Bern 1974, OCLC 720746876 .
Urs Hänsenberger: The Scholarship System 3 . Bern 1977, OCLC 720746880 .
Urs Hänsenberger: The Scholarship System 4 . Bern 1978, OCLC 722107688 .
  • Education funding memorandum . Bern 1975.
  • Erich Kuster: Memorandum on financing of training . Bern 1980, OCLC 83023435 .
  • Scholarships: Documentation on the national assembly on May 22, 1982 in Freiburg and the working day for scholarships on May 7, 1983 in Bern . Bern 1983, OCLC 428090988 .
  • Scholarships: Documentation on the VSS Scholarship Working Day on June 23, 1984 in Freiburg . Bern 1985.

Secondary literature

  • Liberal Student Union Zurich; Progressive Student Union Zurich (Ed.): On the Lausanne model (student financing) . Zurich 1969, OCLC 80140216 (contemporary publication of political opposition, 1968–1969).
  • Elmar Koller: The university scholarships in Switzerland: on the new regulation of the scholarship system . PG Keller, Winterthur 1964, OCLC 715901593 .
  • Daniel Jeanbourquin: Bourse d'études et harmonization: l'exemple des cantons latins . Institut de hautes études en administration publique, Lausanne 1986, OCLC 716069217 .
  • Lucien Criblez: Federal State Funding and Federal Responsibility: On the Reorganization of Scholarship Policy in the 1960s and 1970s . In: Lucien Criblez, Christina Rothen, Thomas Ruoss (eds.): Statehood in Switzerland: Governing and administering before the neoliberal turnaround (=  historical educational research . Volume 2 ). Chronos, Zurich 2016, ISBN 978-3-0340-1363-5 , pp. 247-270 .

Archive sources

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ a b c scholarships. Année politique suisse
  2. ↑ a b c d Lucien Criblez: Federal State Funding and Federal Responsibility: On the Reorganization of Scholarship Policy in the 1960s and 1970s . In: Lucien Criblez, Christina Rothen, Thomas Ruoss (eds.): Statehood in Switzerland: Governing and administering before the neoliberal turnaround (=  historical educational research . Volume 2 ). Chronos, Zurich 2016, ISBN 978-3-0340-1363-5 , pp. 247-270 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Lausanne model coordination group: Lausanne model: Project of a new type of student financing . In: trade union review: quarterly journal of the Swiss trade union federation . tape 63 , no. 7-8 , 1971, pp. 214-218 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-354515 .
  4. ↑ a b The Federal People's Initiative 'Reorganization of Student Financing' on the website of the Swiss Federal Chancellery
  5. ↑ "When the son of Mr. and Mrs. X has entered a technical center, they usually have to pay for his training costs, even though their son later does not build the machines he designs for his parents, but on behalf of his employer, on what they are used somewhere in society. "Lausanne Model Coordination Group (1971)
  6. ↑ CW: Popular initiative for a centralized right to grants: The student association calls for an adjustment and an increase in training fees . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . July 21, 2010 ( online [PDF; accessed July 23, 2018]).
  7. ↑ Ronald Schenkel: Successful in the third attempt . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . January 19, 2012 ( online [accessed July 23, 2018]).
  8. ^ Association of Swiss student bodies : Scholarship initiative: Because training creates the future! Initiative sur les bourses d'études: Car la formation c'est l'avenir! Media conference, 2012.