The upper secondary general school-leaving certificate (Abitur) is obtained after 12 or 13 years of education. There is strong co-operation between educational institutions, employers and other social partners who also work together on adjusting curricula. In 2011, employment rates of adults who attained vocational upper secondary level were 17 percentage points higher than for those who attained general programmes (compared to the OECD average gap of 5 percentage points).