Stephanie Andrea Bernet

"Curricula are a central instrument in school laws. They have regulating effects on elementary education and ensure the adequate basic education in terms of academic contents. Hence, they substantiate the term of adequate basic education. In addition, they fulfill the following functions: as working documents, curricula provide guidance for teachers and educational publishers inter alia; as information documents, curricula provide information to parents or stakeholders from politics. Cantonal curricula are issued by an executive authority. As an instrument of the planning administration, curricula are a form of action of administrative law. Curricula concretise superordinate law and control administrative discretion. Based on the self-conception of curricula, with reference to their legal framework and taking into account the various players in the elementary school system, curricula are to be classified in terms of their legal nature as a hybrid between indicative and authority-binding plan, whereby the authority-binding content components show parallels to ordinances of executive authorities. In addition to cantonal curricula linguistically regional curricula exist – namely one for each linguistic region of Switzerland. The so-called Lehrplan 21 for the German-speaking part of Switzerland has been developed by the Deutschschweizer Erziehungsdirektorenkonferenz (D-EDK). It is not directly binding and therefore needs to be implemented into cantonal law by the competent cantonal authority. The Plan d’études romand (PER) for the French-speaking part of Switzerland has been developed by the Conférence intercantonale de l’instruction publique de la Suisse romande et du Tessin (CIIP). Since the CIIP has been granted legislative competence by the Convention scolaire romande (CSR) with regard to the adoption of the regional curriculum, the provisions of the PER are strictly binding for the participating cantons. The Piano di studio for the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland has been issued by the cantonal government."