Vocational Apprenticeship of Employees (Apprentissage de professions de salariés) - Belgium

Source: Federal Government of Belgium

• Objective
• General Principles
• Evaluation

Objective

The aim pursued by the vocational apprenticeship of employees, also called "industrial training" offers to the young people unable or unwilling to participate in the usual training procedures the possibility of complete vocational training being composed of theoretical and general vocational training as well as of a practicing in a company. The participants obtain a professional experience which will increase considerably their chances on the labour market. They earn a trade which would normally be carried out by wage-earners. The method of this training corresponds to that of dual training, i.e. the young person learns the practical part of the training within the enterprise and is additionally taught theory in a vocational school.

General Principles

The practical part of the training takes place within the enterprise and the trainee is additionally taught theory for a smaller number hours (in the French-speaking community in a Centre d'éducation et de formation en alternance, in the Flemish-speaking community in a Centrum voor Deeltijds Beroepssecundair Onderwijs and in the German-speaking community in a Teilzeitunterrichtszentrum). This allows the trainee to acquire a comprehensive vocational skill which is certified by the joint commission for apprenticeships in the relevant sector when the trainee has passed the final examinations.

The apprenticeship is a period of training for young persons aged between 15/16 and 18 years who are in part-time compulsory education. The joint commissions for apprenticeships can, in individual cases, also allow young people who are older than 18 years to conclude an apprenticeship contract.

It is intended that access to industrial apprenticeships be made easier by way of the Law of 6.5.1998, amending the Law of 19.7.1983 on apprenticeships in occupations normally carried out by wage-earners (MB of 29.5.1998). Compared to the Law of 19.7.1983, this latest law includes six new provisions:

• An auxiliary commission for apprenticeships is to be set up at the National Labour Council. Its role will be to organise industrial apprenticeships in sectors in which no joint commission for apprenticeships has been formed under its own initiative. This means that the industrial apprenticeship system will theoretically be introduced to all sectors. Currently, there are only 40 commissions for industrial apprenticeships. This is the main reason why industrial apprenticeships are so seldom carried out.
• Organisation will be simplified in enterprises with between 20 and 50 employees.
• The method used to calculate the apprenticeship allowance to be paid by the enterprise is to be set by way of royal decree.
• A regulation will be introduced which will allow collective deviations from the set age limit (18 years on conclusion of an industrial apprenticeship). This will then make it possible for industrial apprenticeships to be also carried out in occupations which are considered hazardous and in which, for this reason, only persons over 18 years of age are permitted to work.
• The system will become more transparent, more flexible and will take on a simpler form. A decree on apprenticeships will include all the regulations in force. The joint commissions for apprenticeships should, however, be able to adapt these regulations on the spot to the operational realities at hand.
• The procedures for giving notice will be made more flexible, which will mean that the duration of an industrial apprenticeship contract can be extended after an interruption.

Evaluation

The number of apprenticeship contracts in progress is estimated at approximately 850. By adding the contracts under the system of dual training there are approximately 1,500 apprenticeship contracts. Dual training addresses young people who have been taught on reduced hours. Employers who have employed young jobseekers (who are still in compulsory education and therefore have to complete a certain number of hours at a vocational school) on the basis of a part-time employment contract or industrial apprenticeship contract are eligible to receive compensation for training.

These number of participants in these training schemes is still not significant, taking into account the target of almost 10,000 young people being taught on reduced hours.

The first quarter of the school year 1998-1999 was characterized by a vigorous criticism on behalf of the sectors regarding certain changes in the system, introduced by the modification of the law in 1998. In certain sectors of industry there was true opposition and the operation of their joint commissions on training was blocked for a time.

In reaction, it was decided to implement a year of transition for the application of the modification of 1998. Thus, the sectors had, until 1 September 1999, time to establish a new system of apprenticeship and to apply the new legal provisions to their level.

Certain sectors had already introduced in fact some of the new elements, while others prohibited the application of certain changes. In this way, there was a mixture of old and new system in certain sectors; others simply stuck to old. For people involved, the situation was rather chaotic and confused.

The following statements may be made: 14 commissions on training have invested seriously in the revision of their apprenticeship systems, in accordance with the new legal provisions introduced in 1998; only half succeeded in completing the revisions before 1 September 1999. Moreover, the regularisation and the updating of the composition of the joint commissions on training (essential since in many cases the people taking part in the meetings were not, for already a long time, those named by ministerial decree) had only been completed in eight committees on 1 October 1999. It may be added that the joint commission on training of the national labour council, which must ensure the back-up organization of the training system, had still not met by mid-October.

During the autumn 1998, a number of occurences were noted:

• The majority of the sectors concerned do not see any relationship between apprenticeship and the problems of professional insertion of young people taught on reduced hours, a point of view diametrically opposite to that of the government and the parliament;
• In the sectoral discussions concerning apprenticeship between the joint commissions, attention is especially paid to good working conditions and the correct payment of duly calculated salaries. The good execution of training programs, the quality of proactival and theoretical training in the training centres are of secondary importance;
• The fact that the apprenticeship contracts represent a specific type of contract with a specific nature and a specific object, namely a dual training is rejected and regarded as not taking account of reality;
• Also the apprentices themselves also consider their training just like an employment and almost exclusively a means of getting of a proper income;
• The principal goal of the training centres in dual training is to place the greatest possible number of young people in companies, since that represents the essential goal in their process of labour market insertion. The type of contract, the contents and the practicing methods of this contract are for them secondary questions.

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