nice catch. if the article focuses on european higher education, it may not apply to north american systems, which aim for breadth. my understanding is that even in university, european students pick a track before matriculation and keep to it.
I'm German. We have a three tiered school system: the lowest one where you go to school for, iirc, 9 years is usually bound for people who are ... more hands on and later do an apprenticeship as a e.g. hairdresser. Middle tier is where you go to school for 10 years and do an apprenticeship as e.g. accounting clerk or IT system specialist. The higher tier is where you get the Abitur. It's mandatory that you have this if you want to go to university, but it takes 13 years to get one. You pick 2 classes that are maybe equivalent to AP classes in us high school. You can also pick the rest of your classes, but they require less time. E.g. mine where math and English.
After that you have a choice between two different kinds of universities. One is more traditional, but you pick the subject before hand and maybe you have some classes that you can choose for yourself but usually they have to have something to do with your main subject, e.g. some electrical engineering classes if you study mechanical engineering.
Then there is the university of applied sciences, which is a mix between an apprenticeship and university, with a more hands on approach. It's where you would study software engineering instead of computer science.
That's the reason our universities are more focused, we cover lots of ground in different topics at school.
