> Also, perhaps one of the western European folks here can comment, but I seem to recall that trade apprentices in, say, Germany, generally still have a pretty decent core knowledge of math, language, etc from school. I.e. pretty comparable to an "academic track" US high school student, excepting AP courses. True?
I'm not sure about Germany, but in Switzerland, "school" is mandatory until the end of middle-school. After that it can really be anything between zero classes, 100% on-the-job apprenticeship and general, academic track high-school. Selection is mostly done by grades, since they're a good indicator whether school/classes/lectures work for a student or not. Most people go to trade schools and will indeed attend core math, language, geography/history classes. But the amount and depth of these classes aren't close to general high-school. They cover maybe 50-60% of the material. And then you'll have people in dual school/on-the-job training, where core classes are really reduced to the bare minimum.
Note that all tracks offer bridges to tertiary education, at vocational universities or even sometimes proper universities, so that you aren't stuck forever if you didn't take education seriously as a teenager.
I'm not sure about Germany, but in Switzerland, "school" is mandatory until the end of middle-school. After that it can really be anything between zero classes, 100% on-the-job apprenticeship and general, academic track high-school. Selection is mostly done by grades, since they're a good indicator whether school/classes/lectures work for a student or not. Most people go to trade schools and will indeed attend core math, language, geography/history classes. But the amount and depth of these classes aren't close to general high-school. They cover maybe 50-60% of the material. And then you'll have people in dual school/on-the-job training, where core classes are really reduced to the bare minimum.
Note that all tracks offer bridges to tertiary education, at vocational universities or even sometimes proper universities, so that you aren't stuck forever if you didn't take education seriously as a teenager.