From the end of the 1990s the first cantons began, as part of the process of increasing school autonomy, to establish school administrations in compulsory education. The school authorities lay down the legal and strategic framework for these school administrations, while the schools are responsible for the specific implementation and structure. The schools are therefore acquiring partial autonomy, with the operational management increasingly transferred to the individual schools. The school administrations are responsible for the educational, staffing, organisational and administrative requirements of their school. Today almost all compulsory education schools have a school administration.

In the upper secondary level, school administrations have long been established.

Management structures in the higher education sector are marked by a variety of institution-specific solutions. Depending on the higher education institution the organisational structures, tasks and titles of management staff are regulated differently.

In the field of general and in-company continuing education and training (CET) there is a broad range of private and state, company, non-profit and profit CET providers. The conditions of service are correspondingly diverse.