In Switzerland, vocational education and training (VET) is the dominant form of upper-secondary education. About two thirds of all young people enter VET after compulsory school. Previous research suggests that between 20 and 25% of them terminate their apprenticeship contract prematurely (Stalder & Schmid 2006; Maghsoodi & Kriesi 2013). Premature apprenticeship contract termination (PACT) has been shown to be the biggest risk factor in remaining without an uppers-secondary degree (Schmid 2011). Given that young people without upper-secondary qualifications often experience (long-term) unemployment or become dependent on social welfare (Fritschi et al. 2012), the reduction of PACT is of high socio-political relevance. The reasons and consequences of PACT are not well investigated. Existing studies have been either limited to single cantons (Bern, see Stalder & Schmid 2006 and Zurich, see Schmid 2011 and Maghsoodi & Kriesi 2013) or have been based on rough cross-sectional estimations of the number of terminated contracts. Due to the introduction of a new person-ID in the education statistics of the Federal Statistical Office, it is now possible to investigate the prevalence of PACT and of subsequent re-entries into upper-secondary education nation-wide. The presentation focuses the following research questions: 1. How many individuals who enter a two-year apprenticeship with a Federal Certificate experience a premature apprenticeship contract termination? 2. How many of those experiencing a PACT re-enter vocational education and training? 3. What are the institutional and individual determinants of experiencing a premature termination and of a subsequent re-entry? The descriptive results reveal that, overall, 24.4 per cent of all apprentices experienced at least one premature apprenticeship contract determination. However, the prevalence of PACT varies considerably between cantons and occupational fields. The risk of a PACT may be explained with institutional and individual characteristics. The probability for a PACT increases the lower the cantonal share of two-year apprenticeships within VET. Furthermore, and irrespective of the training occupation, women face a lower risk of terminating their contracts prematurely compared to men. Regarding re-entry, the descriptive figures show that almost half of all VET learners with a PACT resume their upper-secondary VET training within the observation span. Given that this figure is lower than the re-entry rates of the above mentioned cantonal studies, which predominantly include individuals in three or four year training program leading to a Federal VET diploma, it is likely that re-entry is more difficult for individuals from two-year training programs.

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