This paper examines if and to what extent educational opportunities of immigrant and native youth are affected by the regional proportion of firm- versus school-based vocational education and training (VET) in Germany and Switzerland. As school-based VET systems, compared to training firms, select their applicants on grounds of school grades rather than ascriptive attributes, educational opportunities of immigrant students are expected to be higher in areas with a more school-based VET system. This assumption should at least hold true on condition that they provide sufficient secondary school certificates. The hypothesis is empirically tested using microcensus data from Germany and census as well as TREE data from Switzerland. The results point to complex structures of occasionally ethnic disadvantage fabricated through the VET system: Whereas immigrant students, particularly males, tend to be excluded in highly firm-based VET systems, they face problems to access more school-based VET systems because they can't provide the required school certificates. © VS-Verlag 2009.
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