It is easy to see that they have to find solutions for a number of unusual problems. In schools of this sort children learn at an early age to get on with contemporaries with a foreign national or ethnic background, although most of them have similar social backgrounds. At a higher level are to be mentioned schools and colleges preparing for entrance examinations to universities for people from Switzerland or other countries who decide later than usual, e.g. after passing an apprenticeship for or even practising an altogether different vocation. Or they have passed the greater part of their childhood and adolescence elsewhere and now want to enter a Swiss university. Or they have attended state secondary schools but could not fit in there for one reason or another.
Language schools make up a considerable portion of the private educational sector.
True state schools in Switzerland teach more foreign languages than is usual in many other countries and very often teach them exceedingly well. Nevertheless, it is hardly possible in the course of the normal school time to reach in a foreign language a level of proficiency required for either practising a profession or pursuing a course of studies in the country where the language is spoken. The number of languages to be learned is on the increase. This, too, is a consequence of globalization. So there is a large market for language teaching with rather keen competition among schools.