Reforming Vocational Training for a Digital Future

Extract

[...] Therefore, it can and must be mobilized in the field of vocational training. This choice seems to have been taken into account by the legislator. In fact, with the law known as 'Professional Future'9 » finances and accounting are facilitated for e-learning distance training. This should easily allow for theaccelerate the development and use. Distance training could be a major lever for tomorrow's training. In fact, it offers satisfactory guarantees. As Thierry Ardouin notes, e-learning training allows for a 'plus grande autonomie du salarié et une plus grande flexibilité dans son organisation10 ». [...]

[...] Access to vocational training remains unequal. In fact, it is the least qualified employees who have the least access to continuous vocational training. Thus, in 2018, if 72% of employees in the retail sector wanted to benefit from training, only 23% were able to do so5. In addition to being unequal, the system remains largely complex and unknown to employees. Or, despite the reforms of the last few years, the latest one bringing its share of major changes6, It is clear that the legislator has not achieved its primary objective: to train employees. [...]

[...] Indeed, a long training can be complicated to reconcile with professional and personal life. On the other hand, validating blocks independently seems more adapted to the life of the employee. It is also a way to certify skills in a specific field without necessarily aiming for the overall diploma, with a better recognition than a punctual training spread over a few hours. For the employer, the competence block is a means of ensuring that the training will be validated in relation to a reference and will lead to a recognized certification. [...]

[...] However, the logic of the 'blocks of skills' is precisely to offer the opposite. Therefore, the 'blocks of skills' cannot be retained as a model for the training of tomorrow. In conclusion, there is currently no fully satisfactory solution, but only temporary trends. These solutions do not establish a trajectory for the next ten years, but highlight the problems. For now, doctrinal work illuminates action but does not propose a solution. No trajectory is fully drawn. The territory and actors involved will have to respond to the challenges of training, conversion, and innovation. [...]

[...] In these conditions, the training may be less recognized, which immediately makes the employee lose employability. The segmentation into blocks is carried out in a very heterogeneous way from one certifier to another. In this regard, the blocks of skills may challenge the notion of qualification that has been hitherto attested by the ability to exercise a profession and/or a function acquired by experience and/or training. Finally, it is reproached to the blocks of skillsa loss of visibility of the profession and its expertise. [...]