The VECOF 2023 report was carried out among 11th-year HarmoS students (the final year of compulsory education, which corresponds to the fourth year of secondary school in the Canton of Ticino), testing their language of schooling (Italian, in Ticino) and in particular written comprehension and spelling, and second languages (French and German, in our part of the world), with a focus on oral and written comprehension.
The national report contains the results relating to the achievement of basic skills at Swiss level and for each canton, as well as the results of basic skills based on individual characteristics such as gender, socio-economic status, language spoken at home and migration status.
The results for the Canton of Ticino
The results of the 2023 survey for the Canton of Ticino show that 85% of pupils achieve basic skills in reading comprehension in the language of schooling (Italian). In this area, Ticino is among the cantons with the best results and its average is statistically significantly higher than that of all other cantons (82%).
In French (L2 in Ticino), 77% of pupils in the fourth year of secondary school achieve basic skills in oral comprehension and 65% in written comprehension. The results for the other Swiss cantons that teach French as a second language (L2 or L3) show an average achievement rate of 58% for basic oral comprehension skills and 51% for written comprehension. In both areas, the average for the canton of Ticino is higher than the average for the other cantons. It should be noted that, as French is optional from the third year of secondary school, the VECOF sample in Ticino included a percentage of pupils who had not been attending French lessons for one or two years.
As regards German (L3 in Ticino), 51% of pupils in Ticino achieved basic skills in oral comprehension (the average for the other cantons is 58%), while for written comprehension the percentage was 45% (the average for the other cantons is 52%). In both areas, the average for the canton of Ticino is statistically significantly lower than that of the other cantons.
It should be noted that the test analysis did not take into account differences between cantons in terms of when foreign language teaching begins: in Ticino, the only canton where German is L3 (in French-speaking cantons, German is L2), teaching of this language begins later than in the other cantons considered. The pupils in Ticino who took part in the survey therefore had less than half the number of hours of German teaching than pupils in the other cantons in the same group.
Finally, with regard to the effect of individual characteristics, it can be observed that, compared to the cantonal average in Ticino, the following are more likely to achieve basic skills: girls compared to boys; pupils from an advantaged social background compared to those from a disadvantaged social background and, to a lesser extent, pupils without a migration background compared to those who are first-generation migrants: in Ticino for second languages but not for the language of schooling.