Continuing education comprises the entirety of the learning processes in which adults develop their abilities, broaden their knowledge and improve their professional qualifications or re-orientate themselves to satisfy their own requirements and those of their social environment. It is the continuation or resumption of organised, targeted learning after completion of a primary phase of education at school, at university and in a profession, with the objective of renewing, deepening, or extending acquired knowledge and skills, or to acquire new skills and abilities. Continuing education is targeted learning. Alongside the institutionalised forms of learning (e.g. attending continuing education courses), informal learning (intentional learning outside educational institutions such as learning at the workplace, reading specialist literature etc.) also counts as continuing education.

 

Definition of terms
The terms "adult education" and "continuing education" are used as synonyms in educational practice and theory, whereby the term "continuing education" is preferred to the term "adult education". Furthermore, the distinction between vocationally oriented continuing education and general continuing education, which still exists today, is being dismantled. Although general continuing education and vocationally oriented continuing education are subject to different legal regulations and are thus also financed differently, in reality they are coming ever closer together.

Lifelong Learning
Continuing education is gaining significance in the context of life-long learning. It is seen as an important factor in solving general societal issues such as migration, integration, illiteracy, maintenance of employability and women's equality.

Continuing education institutes
A wide range of continuing education courses are offered by private, state-run, corporate, non-profit and profit-oriented providers, including the following:

 

Governance and general conditions
Each individual is primarily responsible for his or her own continuing education. The Confederation and the cantons only have a subsidiary role in continuing education. They intervene in continuing education in areas where the objectives and intended effects cannot be achieved without supportive measures. Thus, the role of the Confederation and the cantons also includes special support of the continuing education of educationally disadvantaged persons.

The continuing education landscape is characterised by diversity with regard to responsibility, regulation and financing between the Confederation and the cantons. For improvement of coordination and transparency in continuing education policy, the Forum for Swiss Continuing Education was founded in the year 2000. The Forum for Swiss Continuing Education is dedicated to improvement of the support of continuing education. It advises the Confederation and the cantons on the further development and implementation of continuing education policy.

On the cantonal level, the Inter-Cantonal Conference for Continuing Education, as a specialist body within the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK), acts in the interests of life-long learning, maintains the exchange of experience and the cooperation between the cantons, and handles continuing education issues and projects of trans-regional and Swiss-wide significance. The members are the cantonal representatives for continuing education.
The Swiss Federation for Adult Learning (SFAL) is the umbrella organisation for general and vocationally oriented continuing education. Individuals and institutions involved in continuing education are represented in the SFAL.

Legal basis
On the federal level, the legal basis comprises the following:

 

On the cantonal level, vocationally oriented continuing education is regulated in the cantonal laws which implement the Federal Law on Vocational Education and Training. To date, general continuing education is regulated in very different ways in the cantons, both legally and organisationally. Few cantons have a specific law on continuing education. In most cases, general continuing education is regulated via laws on school and culture, or other legal bases. As a result of the implementation of the Federal Law on Vocational Education and Training, the cantons may, insofar as no legal basis is yet in place, regulate general continuing education within the new cantonal laws on vocational education and training.

On the inter-cantonal level, in 2003 the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK) issued recommendations (which are being revised) designed to motivate the cantons to take an active role in the development of continuing education.