Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Acceptable Jobs and the Epidemic of Youth Unemployment in Southern Italy
- 3 No Jobs, No Hope: The Future of Youth Employment in Spain
- 4 Dirigisme Pour L’Ordinaire: Vocational Training in 21st Century France
- 5 Educating Youth for Future Unemployment in Greece
- 6 Labor Market Policies to Fight Youth Unemployment in Portugal: Between Statism and Experimentalism
- 7 Adaptability of the German Vocational Model to Mediterranean Countries
- 8 US Style Entrepreneurship as a Pathway to Youth Employment: Exporting the Promise
- 9 Grading the Implementation Prospects: Where Do We Go from Here?
- Index
4 - Dirigisme Pour L’Ordinaire: Vocational Training in 21st Century France
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 April 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Acceptable Jobs and the Epidemic of Youth Unemployment in Southern Italy
- 3 No Jobs, No Hope: The Future of Youth Employment in Spain
- 4 Dirigisme Pour L’Ordinaire: Vocational Training in 21st Century France
- 5 Educating Youth for Future Unemployment in Greece
- 6 Labor Market Policies to Fight Youth Unemployment in Portugal: Between Statism and Experimentalism
- 7 Adaptability of the German Vocational Model to Mediterranean Countries
- 8 US Style Entrepreneurship as a Pathway to Youth Employment: Exporting the Promise
- 9 Grading the Implementation Prospects: Where Do We Go from Here?
- Index
Summary
Introduction
In a 1984 report entitled Youth Unemployment in France: Recent Strategies, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 1984) provides a detailed critique of the French vocational education and job training (VET) effort and the failure of that effort to address the problem of an increasingly segmented labor market. The report's authors laid blame for the foundering at the feet of the French educational system and its organizing principle:
Its main purpose seems to have been to select and train for the most important jobs in the country. The criteria of selection have predominantly been the talent for abstraction, the ability to simplify complex problems while leaving room for their complexities, and an overall knowledge of French history, philosophy and culture … One of the mainsprings of this system has been to let the best of each generation remain as long as possible in general education. The vocational training of this elite should therefore begin very late. It could then take place in special institutions, such as Les Grandes Écoles or on-the-job: for example, public administration in the Foreign Service. (OECD, 1984: 57–8)
Hence, the idea of apprenticeship or technical, vocational training at an early age was viewed as an obstacle to social status and upward mobility. Moreover, as the report goes on to state, manual training has been regarded as second-class training, of less value than intellectual training (OECD, 1984: 93). Examples of poor quality vocational training sites follow, complete with poignant descriptions of inadequate tools, broken equipment, meager supplies, and the scant workplace knowledge of instructors.
Since the publication of this report the French government has implemented a variety of programs and policies to blunt the problem of youth unemployment, including a number of measures designed to make vocational education more relevant for the work setting and more attractive to young people. Over 80 of these initiatives are listed by Murphy (2017) in his book Yearning to Labor: Youth Unemployment and Social Destiny in Urban France. A recent endeavor, ‘Les Campus des métiers et des qualifications’, concentrates actors from secondary and higher education, apprenticeship training centers, employers and research institutes who comprise an industrial sector or labor specialty; for example, food and agribusiness, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and so on, to create smooth school-to-work transitions and workplace-based training.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Growing Challenge of Youth Unemployment in Europe and AmericaA Cross-Cultural Perspective, pp. 79 - 100Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2021