• Financing of the system in a sustainable and optimal way;
• Regulating the market to better identify skills needs and ensure the flexibility of the range of professional training and qualifications to address new economic and social challenges;
• Improving the performance, transparency and cooperation between the various players.

To fulfill these missions, the institution issues recommendations and reports any problems in order to enhance the quality of services provided to users.

“Organisation and financing”

The institution organises and finances a device called “CEP” – professional development advice – a process of support, discussion and advice available to any employee seeking to develop their career. The system is free and accessible to all employees, regardless of age, business sector, status or qualifications. It contributes to developing skills, increasing capabilities and providing access to new qualifications.

“Regulation”

The institution regulates costs and distributes funds for vocational training between the various CVET and IVET players. It is able to issue recommendations on access to training, costs and funding rules and collects information from training providers while communicating with all industries and social partners. It is also financing the personal training account – CPF.

To promote high-quality lifelong learning, it is in charge of the quality assurance in VET and has the responsibility to register qualifications which are meaningful for the labour market (qualifications with a level of National qualification framework, and other important qualifications for the labour market).

“Dialogue”

The institution also contributes to the public debate on vocational training and assesses VET policies. It provides an exchange forum for dialogue and conducts studies, while maintaining an ongoing relationship with industries, social partners and public decision makers.

France compétences has a Board of Directors, elected for three years, which has three specialist committees to analyse, review and provide expertise in their respective fields: the Audit and Finance Committee, the Assessment and Evaluation Committee and the Recommendations Committee.

The Professional Qualifications Committee, created by the decree of 18 December 2018, has a special status. Its members are appointed by the French Labour Minister, guaranteeing its independence in the performance of its duties. It is particularly responsible for the two national reference frameworks: the RNCP (French National Framework of Professional Qualifications) and the RS (Specific Reference Framework).

The French national framework for professional qualifications (RNCP) has eight levels like the EQF.

The RNCP is the national database in which professional qualifications are classified. The RS, meanwhile, contains a range of professional skills complementary to professional qualifications.

To ensure that qualifications are relevant and up to date, France compétences identifies emerging and changing professions and incorporates new professional skills associated with those professions into the RNCP or RS. This system enables employers and European citizens to compare French qualifications to those managed by the other EU Member States.

Designated as an NCP (National Coordination Point) for implementation of the EQF, France compétences is an active partner in the Europass set up by the European Commission on 1 July 2020. An automatic edition of the supplement to the Europass certificate is accessible from the RNCP.

France compétences is one of the main organisations responsible for ensuring the quality of the training and apprenticeship system.

The law of the 5^th September 2018 sets out the new national quality standard aimed to provide more harmonisation and transparency. This is a new basis for all VET providers. France compétences has been appointed as a national reference point for EQAVET.

France competences publishes an updated version of its National Register of Professional Qualifications (RNCP) Handbook, taking into account changes made by the law n ° 2022-1598 of December 21, 2022 that relates to emergency measures concerning the functioning of the labour market for full employment. This document is addressed primarily to sector professionals and aims to provide all the necessary information in order for them to complete an application request for certification.

This law recently opened up access to Validation of Acquired Experience (VAE) to incorporate a larger set of possibilities. The Handbook  integrates the possibility of acquiring a skills set at the end of the course validation process and highlights that certain procedures are now simplified. This new version has also been enriched with new references to help identify correspondences between professional certifications and their skill set, and to reflect improvement suggestions made by professionals from the sector.

The ambition of this Handbook is to guide professionals in the process of registering their certification. It specifies the expectations related to the RNCP registration of a professional certification, includes the guidelines communicated by the Professional Certification Commission, and includes recommendations for good practices. The document presents in particular: the main notions of professional certification, the elements for demonstrating the efficiency of a professional certification project and the expectations in terms of building certification reference systems. It also recalls the obligations arising from the RNCP registration.

Consult the Handbook

The French qualifications system has 8 levels and 3 descriptors, with the exception of the first level, which corresponds to basic knowledge and has no descriptor.

The descriptors are in connection with the labour market:

• Knowledge: the descriptor is about the progression in knowledge to carry out the professional activities of the level (processes, materials, terminology of one or several fields, theoretical knowledge).
• Expertise: the descriptor is about the progression to carry out professional activities in relation with the level: complexity and technicity of a task, of an activity in a process; the level of mastery of the professional activities; the ability to use a range of abilities (practical and cognitive ones); expertise in the field of communication and interpersonal relationships in a professional context; the ability to transfer skills.
• Responsibility and autonomy: the descriptor is about the progression in the following fields: work organization, response to hazard, comprehension of the complexity, understanding of the overlapping with other professional fields, enabling to organize one’s work, to correct it or to give indications to supervised staff, the participation to collective work, the level of supervision.

The descriptors show a progression to more complexity. The level of a qualification is fixed by the result of the balance between the three descriptors.

Baccalaureate is registered at the level 4 of the framework, and higher education diplomas are included in the national framework.

The national register for professional qualifications (RNCP) is the national database where qualifications are registered with their level.

Process of validation of prior learning (validation des acquis de l’expérience) is mandatory for the registration of qualifications in the RNCP.

There are 2 ways to register qualifications:

• Ministries may create qualifications if a commission where representatives of social partners and representatives of ministries discuss the opportunity of their creation. For HE diplomas, the discussion with social partners is also compulsory (registration by law).
• Or they are accredited by France compétences after an analysis by France compétences and assent of the commission nationale de la certification professionnelle, chaired by an independent person (registration on demand).

The qualifications are expressed in learning outcomes and are based on 3 standards:

• Standard of activities
• Standard of competencies
• Standard of assessment

The compliance of the qualification with these 3 standards is systematically checked.

In order to facilitate lifelong learning, qualifications must be composed by units/competences blocks (blocs de compétences) which are: « identified part of qualifications, defined as a homogeneous and coherent set of competences contributing to carrying out a professional activity autonomously, and which can be assessed and validated » with an exception for regulated professions.

Pathways are possible between blocks of competences registered in the RNCP and qualifications registered in another national repertory with qualifications without level, also under the responsibility of France compétences.

This report, describing the levels of the French national framework and presented to the EQF advisory group on 23 February 2021, shows that they are comparable to those of the EQF, fulfilling the criteria set out in the Recommendation.

This advisory group is made up of national experts on the Commission for the implementation of two Recommendations: one relating to the EQF and one relating to the validation of formal, non-formal and informal learning (Recommendation of December 2012).

The French framework was created by the law of 5 September 2018 (L. 6113-1) and defined by subsequent texts (Art. D. 6113-18 and D.6113-19 of the French Labour Code, ruling of 8 January 2019).

The report describes the changes to the training and qualifications system over the past 10 years in relation to the national framework, its characteristics and the definition of levels of qualifications (registration with the RNCP). It explains how the criteria are met for acceptance of the framework by the group of experts.

Annex 3 of the Recommendation sets out 10 criteria to allow understanding of the levels in a Member State’s qualification framework and their comparison with those of the European framework.

Some of the criteria are formal (publication of the legal skills of the organisations participating in the referencing, commitment to publish on the Europass portal – criteria 1 and 9).

Others are more technical, such as:

• taking the learning outcomes description as a basis, being linked to procedures for validating prior learning (criterion 3);
• integrating qualifications into the national framework in a transparent manner (criterion 4);
• implementing quality assurance procedures (criteria 5 and 6);
• proving the relationship between the national levels and those of the EQF and having them guaranteed by the competent authorities (criteria 2 and 8).

Criterion 8 specifies that a referencing report can also include self-qualification of higher education diplomas according to the Framework for Qualifications of the European Higher Education Area. This is the option that was chosen, since the French Ministry of Higher Education had not yet carried out this referencing specified by the Bologna Process.

Two international experts were involved in drafting the report (criterion 7): a former representative of Luxembourg on the EQF advisory group and a Romanian university professor, both experts in the field.

Finally, the Member State undertakes to indicate the European framework levels on its qualifications (criterion 10).

The report was also reviewed by a representative of the Council of Europe, a representative of CEDEFOP (the Commission agency specifically responsible for vocational training), as well as by three experts from the advisory group.

Drafting was carried out by a drafting committee made up of members from France compétences and the professional qualifications committee (ministries, representatives of social partners, employees and employers: the CPME [Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises] and the CGT [General Labour Confederation]).

A reading committee made up of other members of the qualifications committee (mainly social partners), the consular chambers (trades and industry) as well as the CTI and the HCERES reread the project and as many comments as possible were taken into account.

For instance, a proposal was made to the EQF expert group to accept correspondence between the French levels and their equivalent European levels, with the exception of level 1, for which no clear correspondence exists since is not described in terms of descriptors and does not include any qualification. This request was accepted.