The Introduction of Labor-Market Requirements into the Educational System Educational institutions differ in their proximity to the world of work. While some prepare learners for a future school-to-work transition or train them in a specific occupation or profession, others offer a more general educational program that is more distant from labor-market requirements. Economic labor market concerns do not automatically enter and merge with the inherent logics of educational institutions. Educational institutions do not only function to prepare individuals for the labor market, but also to integrate them into society socially, culturally and politically. Nevertheless, there is a relationship between school levels and their proximity to labor-market requirements. While obligatory educational programs are logically more distant from the employment system, post-obligatory secondary and tertiary educational programs tend to be related to this system more closely, albeit in different ways. In Switzerland, post-obligatory education has historically been divided into academic, general and vocational education. The proximity to labor-market requirements is greatest in the latter (Georg and Sattel 2006). The vocational education and training (VET) system, which dominates the post-mandatory educational system in Switzerland, trains apprentices to be able to enter occupational positions in the labor market immediately after completing their training. Indeed, occupational organizations define the ordinances and the main components of the relevant curriculum, while state federal authorities are only responsible for issuing them (SEFRI 2018). During the last few decades, however, educational policy has become more prominent in formulating strategies and initiating reforms in order to better adapt the educational system and its programs to labor-market realities and changes (Tomlinson 2013). Since the 1990s, the attractiveness of VET and its capacity to adapt to the labor market's requirements for new and higher qualifications have been questioned. Increasing numbers of students have been drawn to higher education (Kiener and Gonon 1998). In response, new vocational programs were created to enable lifelong learning and continuous integration into the employment system, universities of applied sciences were established and the VET system introduced the Vocational Baccalaureate Diploma. These reforms were intended to render the system more permeable to tertiary education in view of a labor market situated in a globalized economy and based on knowledge-intensive activities (Kiener and Gonon 1998). The academic system has not escaped educational strategies to take labor-market needs more into account, in particular in light of the expansion of the university