French Centre for Research on Education, Training and Employment (Céreq) - France

Source: French Centre for Research on Education, Training and Employment (Céreq )

• Introduction
• Departments and Activities
  • Continuing vocational training (DFC)
  • Entries into Working Life (DEVA)
  • Occupations and the Labour Market (DPMT)
  • Work and Training (DTF)
  • International expertise
  • Céreq's future activities

Introduction

Céreq is a public body under the aegis of the Ministry for Youth, Education and Research and the Ministry for Social Affairs, Works and Solidarity. As a public centre of expertise at the service of the key players in training and employment, Céreq is involved both at once in the production of statistics, research and the accompaniment of actions. It provides advice and proposals intended to clarify choices in the area of training policy at regional, national or international level.

A board of directors, presided over by Dominique Balmary, defines the programme of activity and the budget. Its members include representatives of labour and management, ministries and public organisations, qualified public figures and Céreq staff. An scientific council, presided over by Pascal Petit, reviews the scientific content of the studies carried out.

A 152-member staff, including a large majority of researchers, works at Céreq and in its network of associated centres. The budget for 2002 is on the order of 8.9 million euros.

Céreq works for its two supervisory ministries, Youth, Education and Research, and social Affairs, Work and Solidarity. It also carries out studies for other ministries, notably Agriculture and Sports. Activities are carried out in partnership with regional and local governments and foreign bodies. Other studies are conducted for or with private and public enterprises and for the occupational branches and the unions.

Céreq's regional network includes seventeen regional centres based in university research laboratories or the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). The specialties developped by each research team complement those of the Marseilles staff.
The associated centres and their host laboratories carry out specific studies in the context of Céreq's fields of investigation. They also participate in collective studies corresponding to the main lines of the Centre's research and carry out missions for the different partners in the regions.

Departments and Activities

Continuing vocational training (DFC)

Continuing training is required to play a growing role in company policy as well as in the situation of individuals on the labour market. The Department on Production and Use of Continuing Training (DFC) deals with three aspects of these issues:

• the role of training in the companies' human resources management policies, its relationship to productive efficiency and recent developments in skills strategies combining work experience and recourse to training;
• conditions of access to continuing training, combinations of individual and company initiatives, ineqalities in access, the role of continuing training in individual career paths and the contribution of public policies;
• the constitution of the continuing training market and the role of intermediaries and rules on this market.

The production of data (school and company declarations, observatory on authorised joint collection bodies [OPCA]) is combined with more qualitative approaches. European comparisons shed further light on these three dimensions of analysis.

Entries into Working Life (DEVA)

Young people, who are more often affected by unemployment than experienced adults, hold jobs that are more precarious and less skilled. The Department on Entries into Working Life (DEVA) studies the role of training in the building of beginners' paths to labour-market entry, as well as the impact of the public training or employment schemes aimed at them.

The department works to develop information and analyses, mainly from quantitative data, which will help to define youth training policies, to improve knowledge of the itineraries of beginners entering an occupational field and to understand the way that young people acquire work experience.

All of these elements are compared to the situations in other countries, notably those of our European neighbors. The new responsibilities of France's regions in the area of vocational training also lead to greater interest in regional indicators and the analysis of vocational training supply and labour-market entry schemes which are mainly administered at local level.

Occupations and the Labour Market (DPMT)

The department on Occupations and the Labour Market (DPMT) deals with three aspects of changes in the labour market:

• Occupational dynamics, in relation to the transformation of work organisation and production, the professionalisation of new activities, notably in commercial or non-commercial services.
• Individual mobilities on the labour market. The goal here is to clarify relations between mobility and professionality--the way that individuals, both young people and adults, develop their skills, increase their qualifications and build their careers. Particular attention is paid to the dynamics of exclusion.
• Forms of labour-market organisation. The development of tools for forward-looking analysis of jobs and occupations in both quantitative (occupational and labour-force demography, labour-force flows) and qualtitative (changes in jobs, skills, occupational groups) terms.

Work and Training (DTF)

The Department on Work and Training (DTF) analyses the relations between work activity and training contents for a given occupational field in the context of the changing organisation of work, human resources management policies and the dynamic of knowledge and skills produced in the work situation.

These studies integrate the role of the different training players (designers, training engineers, trainers) and the production system (branch representatives, companies, work teams). Analyses deal with existing certification systems including diplomas and homologated titles.

The department is responsible for two databases, Accent and Reflet. Accent collects and analyses the content of company agreements concerning classifications, vocational training and employment since 1993. Reflet is a database on technical diplomas issued by the educational system and the Ministry of Agriculture; available on Céreq's Website, it provides information on changes in diplomas, the numbers of persons trained and examination results.

International expertise

European integration is creating a growing need for knowledge of training systems and labour markets in the different member countries of the Community. Céreq monitors vocational training throughout Europe. Alone or in partnership with foreign institutions, it carries out comparative studies on the key themes of its work programme: youth access to employment in the different European countries, changes in the certification systems, continuing training practices in the companies. It participates in the main programmes of the European Community (Leonardo, Research and Development Framework Programme) and its role also extends to expertise and support missions for EC authorities. It collaborates, for example, with Brussels' Education-Training division to determine "key figures on the transition", with Eurostat for the construction of data on continuing training in the companies and with CEDEFOP on the youth transition.

At the same time, Céreq intervenes at the request of institutions such as the OECD or the ILO and its counterparts, such as INOFOR in Portugal. Outside of Europe, it participates in various activities of co-operation, methodological support and exchange of experiences, notably with the countries of the Mediterranean basin and Latin America.

Céreq's future activities

Three essential issues for the analysis of relations between training and employment underlie Céreq's work programmes for the 2000-2002 period:

• Relations between work, training and skills. In a context of profound technological, organisational and market transformations, it is necessary to go beyond a linear vision of relations between training and work. In particular, how can we arrive at a better appreciation of the ways work organisation generates and develops skills in order to set up training and mobility paths integrating experience and life-long training?
• Changes in systems of mobility. The combination of precariousness in access to a first job and the transformation of company labour markets is defining new patterns of mobility. The analysis of individual itineraries, the production of overviews of labour-market structures for beginners and adults alike, the understanding of the new rules in the making can all help to revise the approach to relations between training and mobility.
• Transformations in government action and the role of the players in training production. How to grasp the effect of decentralisation processes, the changing role of the economic players in decision-making, new forms of public direction and co-ordination in the field of vocational training? The increasing complexity of the system creates the need to open the "black box" of the decision-making processes defining the production of initial and continuing training at every level.

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