Paid Education Leave (Congé-éducation payé)

The purpose of the system of paid education leave is the social advancement of the workers engaged in the private sector. It aims at reducing the required costs and efforts of the workers who, in addition to their work, make the effort to follow external training. The part-time workers with a fixed schedules are excluded from this measure.

By the introduction of this mode of additional individual vacation, the legislator first of all aimed at a raise in the general level of education of salaried employees, and in second place hoped that this encouragement to follow courses and the raising of the average educational level resulting from it would have a positive effect on the economy and employment thanks to compensatory recruitment. An evaluation of this secondary effect has not taken place but it may be affirmed that these recruitings have been exceptional. The system of paid educational leave can also make it possible to correct social inequalities experienced by workers who were unable to attend their studies and to support the integration of immigrant workers.

The education leave comprises the right to leave work while maintaining normal remuneration, paid at the usual rate for a duration corresponding to the hours of the course actually followed, without exceeding a ceiling that depends on the type of training and whether or not the courses take place during the working hours. The worker loses his or her right to the leave if he or she does not regularly attend the course. The followed training does not necessarily have to have anything to do with the activity or the professional prospects of the worker although, since 1993, with the exclusion of "hobby courses", a tendency has appeared for excluding the courses that do not have a professional purpose.

The right to the paid education leave was extended by the law of 26 March 1999 relating to the Belgian action plan for employment 1998 to the part-time workers who do not work fixed hours. This extension is applicable starting from the school year 1999-2000.

The employers are held to grant the paid educational leave and to remunerate it as if the workers were at work. However, they obtain from the Federal Ministry of Employment and Labour the refunding of remunerations as well as related social security contributions, at a maximum of BEF 68,000 (€ 1,685.68) gross per month. The right to the paid educational leave of the part-time workers is proportional to the length of work.

The worker cannot be laid off for "educational leave" or without reason when the leave was requested in a regular manner.

The impact of paid educational leave on the whole of the labour market is modest. On average, only 2% of the whole of the workers of the private sector make use of the system.

The age of the recipients varies little from one school year to the next. The worker-students between 20 and 40 years represent the majority of the users of the system. It is necessary to note an ageing of "the customers", because the number of those over 30 years has increased with respect to those of less than thirty years; the number of those aged 40 or orver has also increased. Women are underrepresented among the users of the system. In 1992-93, they accounted for 26% of the total, in 1993-94, 24%, in 1994-95, 22%, and in 1996-97, 22%.

An investigation would be useful to determine the cause of this underrepresentation, because the exclusion of part-time workers has not been established as the cause. It is more likely to be a consequence of the role of the woman in the family. However, the fact that the share is the lowest since 1993 is by no means unexpected since a number of household related training courses were excluded that year.

Since 1 September 1993, the duration of the leave has been calculated on the basis of attended hours of the course. Previously, the calculation was done on the basis of theoretical hours of the course to which the worker was registered.

Vocational and general training account respectively for 87% and 13% of the followed courses. By category of teaching for the school year 1996-97, the courses of social advancement had the most participants (39.8%), an increase of 10% from our preceding evaluation, followed by sectoral training courses (21.51%), the automatically approved general training courses (12.7%), and language courses (10.2%).

The most favoured courses relate in general to electricity, data processing, secretarial work and mechanics. Since 1 September 1995, the ceiling of the hours of paid educational leave granted for the courses of languages has been brought back to 80 hours for the first year. The share of these courses of the total courses decreased from 15.46% in 1994-95 to 11.77% in 1995-96 and 10.20% in 1996-97. The sectoral training courses directly related to the vocation activity increased by 3% and exceed the number of the general training courses organized by the trade-union organisations which is decreasing.

It may be noted that approximately 30% of the resources of the paid educational leave were received by the employers under the joint commission of the sector of steel, mechanical and electric construction. This sector accounts for 35% of the users, of which 40% follow sectoral courses, 20% training courses organized by trade unions and 22% are registered with the courses for social advancement. The trade-union and employers' training courses last on average 40 hours while the courses of social advancement last approximately three times longer.

The structure of the cost of the system of paid eduction leave is, by school year, the product of four factors:

Since the school year 1995-96, employers are, at the beginning of the school year or as soon as they are informed that their workers will follow courses, obliged to inform the administration of the funds, of the identity of the workers who will make use of paid educational leave, of the number of hours and the hourly wage of participants. The goal of this preliminary notification is to be able to have the related budgetary data at the time of the development of the budget. For the first year, a sum of BEF 1,380,470,787 was allocated after the notification, the real expenditure rising to BEF 1,579,966,418; the margin of error was thus 12%. For the school year 1998-99, the expenditure should rise to BEF 1,200,045,247.

The system of paid education leave is not directly an instrument for the reduction of unemployment. There is little compensatory recruitment compensating the absences of the workers on paid education leave; their replacement would however have a positive effect on the attitude of the co-workers. In general, except for certain small A.S.B.L., the collective planning of the absences avoids any disturbance in the organization of work in the companies.

However, the system of paid education leave can allow the workers with little education to keep their employment by obtaining a qualification through evening classes. It can also help certain workers threatened by the collective dismissals to find employment in another branch of the industry thanks to new qualifications (example: the courses followed by the workers of the mines of Limbourg), or to carry on an independent activity. The fear of losing their short- or long-term employment is a significant element in the motivation for registration for evening lessons; it is an additional element in the explanation of the success of the system in the metalworking sector. Renault, before its closure, was one of the most significant participants of the system.

The sectoral and company training courses are an essential contribution to the maintenance of the position of Belgium on the world market because they help guarantee the quality of products and services.

In addition, even if the law of 26 March 1999 extended the measure to cover part-time workers, those working part-time with fixed hours remain nevertheless excluded. The legislator considers that the latter can plan their vacations in accomodation with their working time. However, the sectoral training courses take place during the working hours. It would thus be preferable to remove this exclusion.

EMP/SKILLS - Skills and Employability Department