Posted Feb 1 2023 at 17:07Updated Feb 1. 2023 at 19:49
With nearly 810,000 apprenticeship entries from January to November (private and public combined) according to raw figures from the Ministry of Labor just published, the 2022 vintage is set to break a new record. There will be added around 20,000 contracts in December – the final figures will be known at the end of February – which bodes well for an annual increase of at least 12%, probably still driven by students and the tertiary sector.
At this rate, the government’s objective of one million per year will be reached in 2024, perhaps even this year, unless the situation turns around and provided young people are found. However, the figures mark a slowdown compared to the +38% recorded in 2021. The interindustrial skills operator Opco 2i, which expects growth of 5% in its scope, sees this as the consequence of a certain wait-and-see attitude among companies. , linked to the economic context. The late announcement of the future of the hiring bonus – reduced to 6,000 euros – could also play for VSEs, believes its vice-president, Pascal Le Guyader.
Structural shift
More generally, learning is approaching a structural shift. The unanimous opinion is that the Pénicaud reform of 2018, which liberalized its operation under the control of the France Competence establishment, has succeeded in its first bet. Formerly relegated to students failing at school, this form of alternating education has won its letters of nobility, despite the inevitable windfall effects of private establishments with dubious practices.
The progression is above all the fact of the superior? That’s true, but that’s forgetting that apprenticeship only follows the lengthening of the duration of studies, that this allows many disadvantaged young people to be there, and that baccalaureate or lower levels have resumed colors for four years.
Figures on the profitability of Apprenticeship Training Centers also dispel suspicions of the pumping of public funds by investment funds. France skills statistics, to which “Les Echos” had access. It shows that of the approximately 2,000 CFA, 450 lost money in 2021. The others generated an average surplus of 524,000 euros, or 320,000 euros for the 700 private structures alone (excluding associations, consular and public). Above all, nearly nine out of ten CFAs say they reinvest their profits in learning.
“The leakage of money from apprenticeship to shareholders is not proven”, assured, during the Universities of professional training last week in Cannes, Axel Cournède, the adviser to the Minister Delegate for Education and Vocational Training in charge of the file. Nor has the abundance of cases of employers separating young people to investigate hiring bonuses been proven, he added.
Insertion rate
If the quantitative battle has been won, it is now that of the quality of teaching that is at stake, despite high integration rates. “Especially with the government’s objective of reaching 1 million contracts”, insists the president of the National Federation of CFA Directors (Fnadir), Pascal Picault. Nearly one in three contracts is terminated prematurely, although many young people sign another within six months.
The quality project is first played on the orientation of young people in third grade, which Emmanuel Macron has promised to reform. Fnadir insists on the training of apprenticeship masters and quality reference systems.
Another very complex lever, the convergence of the levels of support for the teaching costs of the CFAs is advancing. The next revision of the scales has been postponed from July to September.
The calculation formula could evolve in the long term by inserting criteria linked to the quality of teaching and/or integration rates so as to favor virtuous CFAs. “We started to work”, indicated the director general of France competences, Stéphane Lardy, still in Cannes. The exercise promises to be tricky. “Regulation by quality is a real subject, but beware of the pitfall of a selection at the entrance to the CFA”, added Axel Cournède.