The Accreditation of Qualifications in France: What Role for Joint Inter-Occupational Supervision?

The French worker certification system is focusing on efforts to design a scheme for the accreditation of work-based learning. If implemented, the scheme would be directed by a business-government-worker partnership, recognized and accepted by different occupations, and accessible to all employees regardless of the way their qualifications were acquired. Applicable to a labor market characterized by discontinuous work experiences and precarious employment conditions, such a mechanism would permit worker mobility between jobs and complement the traditional certification regime. Important issues in this effort include: (1) developing standards according to common rules to allow comparison between occupations; (2) establishing student evaluation using multiple forms, such as combining one or more of interview, test, observation and simulation; and (3) structuring qualifications to demonstrate mastery of an occupation or elements of multiple occupations to help create individual career paths. (Sidebars discuss findings of an original research study upon which the scheme is based and general certification practices in various French industries.) (AJ)