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DOCUMENT RESUME CE 072 099 ED 397 264 Charraud, Anne-Marie; And Others AUTHOR Aims and Continuing Training Providers: Activities, TITLE Publics. les Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur INSTITUTION Qualifications, Marseilles (France). ISSN-1156-2366 REPORT NO 96 PUB DATE 5p. NOTE Reports Serials (022) Collected Works PUB TYPE Research/Technical (143) Training & Employment; n24 Sum 1996 JOURNAL CIT MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE Opportunities; Developed Nations; *Educational DESCRIPTORS Program Foreign Countries; Postsecondary Education; *Training; Implementation; Public Policy; *Trainers; Training Methods *France IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT continuing training The variety and growing number of question whether these providers in France have led the government to functioning in a bodies constitute full-fledged service producers standards and rules market situation. In the absence of quality to the ways it is to governing competition, many questions arise as led to a special survey be implemented and developed. Such concerns based on a sampling of of French training providers. The survey was carried out in 1993. The 645 training bodies and the activities they interviews with the heads of qualitative data were collected through quantitative data were obtained the institutions concerned, and the findings of the survey were as through questionnaires. Some of the provided by nonprofit follows: (1) 33 percent of the training was 18 percent by organizat;ons, 26 percent by public organizations, related, and 9 percent private organizations, 15 percent was company (2) the nonprofit and the private trainers were the was semipublic; (3) the training fastest-growing segments of the training market; with a relatively market tends to be made up of small units enlarging their diversified training supply and a concern for trai: ;lig providers offering beyond an initial base of activities; (4) (5) training providers can provide training tend to be specialized; manufacturing and other fields at related to personal development, to salaried employees--either the baccalaureate level or higher, and to and (6) most training at higher levels or without regard to levels; (KC) providers operate in a limited geographic area. *********************************************************************** made Reproductions supphed by EDRS are the best that can be from the original document. * *********************************************************************** ,Trairiin ATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION ICED CENTER (ERIC) ( This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it &c, Minor changes have been made to ent improve reproduction quality Employm... Points . view cn opnions staled in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy \\ II', A\d,'/(s1 I IRIN(11 1\`1 11:()\1 RI . 11 1: I I I 1 1 1 1 -PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS Is11\> MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Continuing Training Providers: Activities, Aims and Publics TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERICL" The variety and growing number of continuing training providers in France have led the public powers to question whether these bodies constitute full-fledged service producers functioning in a market situation. In the absence of quality standards and rules governing competition, many questions arise as to the ways it is to be implemented and developped, and such concerns prompted Cereq to undertake a special survey of French training providers. The 1971 Continuing Training Act established the right HEAVY INFLUENCE OF of every salaried employee to benefit from training and INSTITUTIONAL ORIGINS the obligation of companies with more than ten em- The world observed by Céreq's survey is extremely hete- ployees to contribute to its financing. This required con- rogeneous. This diversity can be explained in terms of in- is calculated on the basis of the company's tribution stitutional links, for these exert a significant influence on gross wage bill; in 1996 the rate was set at 1.5 percent. the nature of training activities and the ways the training This legal mechanism led to a sharp increase in the train- bodies are run. These bodies are distributed among five ing supply, which was further reinforced by the creation of major sectors: public, senli-public, company-related, non- new training activities for job-sEekers. Thus, existing bodies profit and private profit-making. Their respective impact on and institutions were joined by a whole new group of the training market is described below. training suppliers and producers. 1993, more than In 47,000 providers were registered with the government, Public Sector Among the public-sector bodies, most continuing train- with revenues totalling 34 billion francs. Since 1990, legis- ing centres attached to educational institutions (Greta,1 lation has been introduced to regulate the quality of acti- universities) were created during the period immediately vities conducted by providers receiving public funds. Twenty-five years after the passage of the 1971 act. Structures such after the Continuing Training Act, as the ARA or CNAM, however, had been set up much ear- Céreq was asked to conduct an initial survey of training lier. Continuing training constitutes their main activity, bodies (see: "Survey Background", :). 4). and in many instances, their only one. They were set up Market Shaies of the Different Sectors by ministries whose aim was to respond to a wide range in % of Total Turnover of needs and publics, including salaried employees, job- ( 8,5% seekers, and individuals in search of social advance- Semi-Public 15% ment. Company-Related Chamber-Related Sector 18% Most bodies in this sector existed prior to the 1971 act. Private 26% Since their creation, on the initiative of government in- Public stitutions on the national or local level they have been 32,5% ' involved in the continuing training field in order to meet Non-profit 1. See the box on p. 4 for the explanation of the different acronyms. I) 'I I)] III 11111( 1IIUN '-'I 1)1 t I `, i ( I I I I. I I I 1 BEST COPY AVAILABLE Cereq Training & Employment n° 24 - SUMMER 1996 Training & Employment Distribution of Different Categories of Bodies by "Institutional" Sector According to Turnover (no breakdown for profit-making private sector) "Public" Bodies "Company" Sector Bodies Univ. CNAM AFPA Organisations Related to Occupational Branches 17% 28% 17% Other Public 12% ASFO 27% 56% Greta 43% Company-Related Organisations Chamber-Related Bodies Non-Profit Sector Bodies _ _ . Organisations Promoting Chambers of Crafts and Agriculture Socio-Economic Integration 24% Other Organisations 43% 52% Chambers of Commerce and Industry Organisations Linked to Local Communities 76% 5% the needs of companies and small business persons. struction in the broad sense of the term. Their strong in- They resemble public-sector bodies, notably in terms of volvement with training activity is reflected in the fact their limited managerial autonomy and the multiple pub- that 60 percent of them indicate their adherence to the lics for their activities. However, the particular stat is of collective agreement of the training providers. the Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCI) helps Private Profit-Making Sector them to create new structures in response to the growing The large majority of private, profit-making bodies are demand tor training. Thus, nearly 30 percent of the very rece,-tt (51% set up :,ince 1986). In 35 percent of bodies depending on the CCI have been set up since the cases, their main activities are research and consult- 1986. ing, while 60 percent adhere to the collective agreement of the training providers. As with the non-profit bodies, "Company" Sector they are in large majority small structures; 80 percent The "company" sector is composed of the training associ- have an annual turnover of 1 to 5 million francs.2 ations (A5F0), organisations linked to the occupational branches and bodies directly tied to the companies. PARTIAL SEGMENTATION OF SUPPLY BY Three-quarters of the ASFOs were set up prior to 1975, LEVEL, SUBJECT AREA AND PUBLIC3 and the remainder date from the 1980s. For the over- whelming majority of the ASFOs (87 %), continuing The Céreq study indicates that the training market tends training is the main activity, with contents that are spe- to be made up of small units with a relatively diversified cific to the branch. Most of the company-related bodies training supply and a concern for enlarging their offer are set up on the initiative of the company itself, a pro- beyond an initial base of activities. There are, however, fessional in the field or a group of companies that thus relatively specialised bodies. A certain order can be im- create a joint resource centre. This trend reflects the ex- posed on this complexity of training activities by exam- ternalisation or sub-contracting of continuing training ac- the area ining of instruction, of training the level tivities. The public served includes both the company's progranlmes offered and the kind of public addressed. employees and its clients. is rare that the same body intervenes on very disparate It levels. A specialisation thus emerges, and although it Non-Profit Sector may occasionally be extended to the level immediately The creation of most 0, the providers in the non-profit above or below, this is never systematic. sector is related to government efforts in the area of con- Another specialisation evolves around the publics ad- tinuing training for job-seekers during the 1980s. Mainly dressed. These can be divided into three groups: job- activities and social involved cultural integration, in seekers, salaried employees and individuals pursuing a these organisations result in large part (70%) from private one-third initiatives, nearly stemmiog from social workers. These structures are involved irt other activities 2. Within the definition of the base population (turnover above 1 million besides training: nearly half of the sodal organisations francs), there are very few providers with independent status (1.6%). are mainly responsible for community development and 3. The analyses presented in this section are derived from a factorial social work. The others are more concerned with in- analysis of the correspondances. J Céreq Training & Employment n° 24 - SUMMER 1996 Training & Employment Training Programmes Related to Socio-Economic Acronyms Used Integration and Personal Development Greta: The groups of institutions (GRoupements d'ETAblissements) for A first group is made up of providers whose activities are the training of adults are made up of vocational high schoolc and middle schools that have co-ordinoted their resources in order to de- mainly aimed at socio-economic integration or personal velop continuing vocational training activities in the wake of the 1971 public are job- development. Three-quarters of their act AFPA: The Notional Association for the Vocational Education and seekers, and the training programmes offered to them are Training of Adults was created in 1949. Placed under the supervi- not necessarily tied to a specific level. These programmes sion of the Ministry of Labour, it is jointly manoged by the ministry, do not generally provide for accreditation. This group, the unions and the employers' organisations. It is the traditional government body set up mainly to respond to job-seekers' needs which accounts for 20 percent of the bodies, includes for skilling training programmes. half of the social integration organisations and those CNAM: The National Conservatory of Arts and Engineering, linked to local communities, as well as one-quarter of the founded in 1794, is on institution of higher education and basic and applied research under the supervision of the Ministry of Edu- remaining non-profit organisations. Conversely, the cham- cation. Its main function is to ensure high-level advancement of ber-related bodies, those of the "company" sector and the employees and provide continuing vocational training. Ca: The Chombers of Commerce and Industries have the particular public bodies (with the exception of the Gretas) are prac- status of public institutions. They hove existed in their present form tically absent. since 1960 and they provide both tile initial and continuing training. In terms of pedagogy, the institutions in this group privi- ASFO: The training orgonisations (ASsociations de FOrmation) initiative of the employers' organisations. were created at the lege the continuous entry of new trainees and alternating Since 1972 their mission has been the promonn- of training pro- training, with intensive training throughout the duration grammes in the companies through the cop:cation of policies of the activity. The turnover of the bodies concerned is defined by the occupational or inter-occupational groups at their origin. mainly generated through public funds and individual financing. While very few institutions undertake quality procedures based on ISO, AFNOR or OPQF norms, 28 personal initiative. Although the distinctions are clear, percent indicate that they subscribe to a quality charter.4 this specialisation is also relative. Training subjects provide a third criterion for distinguish- Intermediate-Level Skil ling Programmes ing among the different bodies. While some of them The second group corresponds to bodies training offer a relatively limited training supply and have little in manufacturing and tertiary fields at the baccalauréat level desire to diversify, others are far Still less exclusive. or higher (levels Iv and V). This includes general training others concentrate this supply around a combination of industrial processing programmes, technical training in limited subject areas and levels. (metallurgy, plastics), engineering and construction, but Thus, training courses for social integration or personal also secretarial and office work, reception, tourism and development are provided by bodies with little desire to community services. Accreditation is common. More than diversify their supply. The same is true for a considerable half of the public served is unemployed; 36 percent are portion of those involved with foreign languages and salaried employees and 10 percent are individuals paying computer science. At the other extreme, there are a large in management, number of bodies providing training for their training themselves. This group, which accounts for nearly a third of the pro- secretarial work and sales, and for them, these subject viders, has a varied composition including above all the areas are neither predominant nor exclusive. AFPA centres, a majority of the Gretas, half of the cham- Among bodies specialised in social, cultural an(' sports ber-related bodies and a third of the other non-profit or- activities or in medico-social training, some favour a While public funds predominate the in limited choice of fields offered on several levels. Ancther ganisations of financing of over half of these bodies, resources from group that is relatively distinct offers a limited number companies and individuals play a significant role. The in- fields on very few training levels. These include indus- stitutions of this group, like the preceding ones, privilege trial training courses privileging the baccalauréat level or alternating training and continuous entry of new trainees. or academic training (natural social science, higher, The quality procedure is frequent, whether through norms science, humanities) that is mainly situated on post-bac- (18%) or charters (21%). calauréat levels. Continuing Training of Employees and Higher DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONAL CATEGORIES Education and Training OFTEN INVOLVED IN THE SAME TRAINING The third group includes nearly one-half of the bodies, and ACTIVITIES training programmes are largely aimed at salaried em- its ployees (74%). Offered at higher levels or without regard to Dividing the different bodies by activity according to the level, these training programmes are less likely to lead to final levels targetted, the subjects provided and the situ- accreditation. Alternating training and the continuous entry ation ot the public on the labour market brings out three 4. Sec In rocus. relatively consistent groups. 4 Céreq Training & Employment n° 24 - SUMMER 1996 Training 8e-Empioyment ganisations, as well as in non-profit organisations and Survey Background one segment of the private, profit-making bodies. Intra- company activities and private funds account for a large The results presented here are drown from a survey coaled out at the request of the Ministry of Labour. It is based on a sampling of share of their overall funding. In the second case, the 645 training bodies and the activities they carried out in 1993. training programmes are conducted above all by non- The field selected is that of bodies declaring a minimum turnover of profit organisations and public and private bodies bene- million francs in 1992, a population that accounts for 80 1 percent of the turnover in the profession os a whole. The average fitting to a larger extent from individual financing. Their po/ling rote is 11.6 percent of the base population. training programmes most often lead to accreditation. The investigation bears on the structure of the body, the nature of its activities and characteristics of its products and the manage- In the third sub-group, the "generic" characteristics are less ment of its human and material resources, as well as the relations prevalent. This group includes bodies training in socio-cul- maintained with the surrounding environment (clients, partners, tural development, multivalent service specializations and competititors, public players, employers' organisations). The qualitative data was collected through in-person interviews industrial fields (textiles and leather-working, agronomy-ag- with the heads of the institutions concerned. The quantitative data riculture). There are larger numbers of job-seekers (30 % of was obtained through a specific questionnaire complementing the public), and the training courses offered these interviews. are at lower levels (V to III). The bodies operate with a less significant share of private funds or intra-company activities, owing to of new trainees are also much less frequent. Such pro- a larger proportion of public and individual funding. There grammes are often linked to an "intra-company" training are more alternating training activities (42 %). Training in supply, and the majority of the funding comes from pri- social and cultural action is the speciality of the non-profit vate sources. organisations, while the multivalent courses in the services is-e mainly provided by the private bodies, the other or- However, this seeming homogeneity encompasses rather dis- gar...-ations and those linked to the professional branches, tinct realities that vary above all in the nature of the subject as we.' as by the other public institutions. Instruction in taught. Three sub-groups can thus be identified: indushal fields is mainly provided in company structures A first sub-group, where the above characteristics are ex- and the other public institutions. tremely prominent, consists of bodies that are highly spe- Beyond these forms of partial segmentation of the conti- cialised in either tertiary subjects (management, business), nuing training supply, a general observation must be languages or computer science. These are taught almost ex- made about the presence of the different institutional ca- clusively without regard to level, aimed at salaried em- tegories throughout the different fields of activity. Such a ployees and not leading to any accreditation. In the bodies phenomenon can naturally be considered a factor of in- providing such training programmes, the largest share of the creased competition among training bodies. Nonetheless, turnover comes from company funds and intra-company ac- the information available to us calls for prudence in tivities. The institutions of this sub-group include many pri- terms of the reality and the forms that this competition bodies: vate of percent 63 offering those tertiary takes. For one thing, the large majority of the bodies specialisations, 62 percent of those providing foreign-lan- operate within a geographically limited market, as dem- guage training and 50 percent of those teaching computer onstrated by the fac that only 1 5 percent of them :an science (with the other half made up of company training boast of several sites established regionally or nationally. centres where computer science is often the main activity). For another, the ties of dependency or privileged rela- The second sub-group also manifests the general charac- tions between clients and providers, notably in the case teristics of the group as a whole. The bodies included in of operators training company employees, are likely to it provide high-level training (Levels III to I) and address reduce competition among the bodies. And finally, the a public of salaried employees. Some of t:iese bodies are multiplicity of dimensions characterising continuirT, training primarily involved with academic training, administra- leads to a competititve dynamic which, through a sharp differen- tion and management and tertiary training programmes. tiation of the supply, tends to limit competition based on prices. Others offer specialisations healthcare, teaching and in training. In the first instance, the training is largely provided Anne-Marie Charraud, in universities, chamber-related bodies and company or- Alexandre Meliva, Elsa Personnaz Greg The contents of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in port, prosided that the source is aknowledged. Copyright 1996 Administration Cereg, 10 place de lo Joliette, 13474 Marseille cedes 02. Tel. (33) 91 13 28 28 Esocirtise Publisher. Vincent Med. Managing Fditor Mids.! Stoats. Translator: Miriam Rosen ISSN 1136 2366 0061 legal 3. trIgnesiva 1996 0 Céreq Training & Employment n° 24 - SUMMER 1996 BEST COPY AVAILABLE