Geneva to trial full-day schooling in 2026

The French-speaking canton of Geneva is planning to test full-day schooling in 2026. Schoolchildren will spend the whole day at school rather than finishing early or going home for lunch.

Children to stay in school the whole day in Geneva

School timetables are set to undergo a change as several primary schools in Geneva start to pilot a continuous school day starting in 2026, according to RTS. The aim is for the new school day model to be rolled out across Switzerland by 2028.

Currently, schoolchildren in Switzerland tend to go home for a few hours over lunch, and primary schoolchildren often finish at around 11.30am. From next year, however, several schools will test full-day schooling, which means that children will have both morning and afternoon lessons or extracurricular activities, and will stay at school for lunch as well. 

The exact details, including the proposed school timetable and which schools will participate in the scheme, are being finalised by the canton in collaboration with parents, teachers and local representatives.

New school offering aims to help working parents

Changing the school day was championed by Geneva’s education minister Anne Hiltpod (FDP). Hiltpod named it the “project of the century”, arguing that the current approach, where children either finish early or go home for lunch, is outdated. “Who can pick up their child at 11.30 these days?” she said. 

The project aims to adapt school timetables to the “evolution of society”, as most parents work full-time and have less flexibility to look after family.

In 2021, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) reported that 82 percent of mothers in Switzerland had a job, 22 percentage points higher than in 1991. The cost of childcare has risen too. In 2022, a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that families in Switzerland spend the most in Europe on childcare.

A similar full-day schooling project was launched in Neuchâtel in 2024, promising to offer continuous childcare at schools throughout the day. The project was recently deemed a success by Blick: 70 percent of schoolchildren opted in to the voluntary full school day across two secondary schools.