Until mass unemployment came to France, vocational orientation was not a major issue. But for the past ten years, the country has been striving to harness orientation to the strict needs of the employment market. The traditional providers of orientation advice within secondary schools and public organisations of the state and the regions attempt to resist this evolution.

With 100,000 young people aged 16 years leaving the educational system each year without a professional qualification as well as 4.2 million unemployed persons without any or very limited work, the public powers in France are now taking another look at vocational orientation. Thus, from a sector of weak activity shared by a number of institutions managed by the ministries of Education and Employment, the regions, towns and professional organisations providing training, vocational orientation guidance for young people, workers and the unemployed has become a sector that is now in full growth and a highly political issue.

To form a collaboration between the reputable national Education Ministry which does not care about professional insertion and the Employment Ministry which is now obsessed by it, the position of interdepartmental delegate for information and orientation (DIO) was created in 2006. In 2010, four nominated people had already given up, i.e. one resignation each year! The law of 24 November 2009 on the reform of vocational training and orientation has created a daring assumption: “the only place of orientation”, which, as its name does not indicate, is a network of orientation institutions synergised without the help of the DIO who produces an observational review each year but does not make any obligations.

In parallel to this unpredictable work of coordination and persuasion, the state has expressly provided the employment services with orientation and professional training, by creating the “Pôle Emploi” in 2010, a network of public agencies merging the functions of unemployment benefits and guidance required for returning to the employment market, based on the English job centre model.

Laurent Wauquiez, then secretary of state for employment, has signified this wish to merge by adding 800 psychologists in orientation, previously employed by the National Association for Adult Vocational Training (AFPA) under its authority to the Pôle Emploi in 2010. These institutional modifications have also affected the regional councils, major providers of training and orientation (53% of their expenses amount to 4.2 billion euros each year) for the unemployed. Indeed, the state has reduced the financial resources belonging to the regions – extremely high majority on the left – by abolishing employment tax and freezing the transfers from the National Treasury to the regions. This results in less money for financing their own policies for the benefit of the partners with the Pôle Emploi, somehow adding regional knowledge.

In fact, since 2004, the regions have already started to set up real guidance networks providing vocational orientation through a range of professional skills such as psychology and knowledge of the local needs of companies as regards skills, and have already made documents available on the current local training offers.

By accompanying these political and institutional rivalries, we are in a war of visions on the mission towards providing vocational advice: assessing the suitability of the psychological profile, qualifications with a desired job or forcing a person interested to carry out a job due to a lack of workers and following brief training for the new position. The skills demanded of the orientation advisers (CO) will vary considerably according to these ethical approaches. In the first case, the CO will initially act as a psychologist and in the second, the CO will combine knowledge in the required qualifications with the training offer matched to a field or given area..but will seldom be trained to do psychology.

A solution is to expand the training field of the CO to the working methods of their partners/rivals. This is the aim of the decree dated 4 May 2011, launching a new national name “orientation for all”. If, among the naming criteria, there is the first greeting, personalised guidance, comprehensive information and objectives on jobs and employment opportunities, there is also “training on common skills of employees in different networks and mutual knowledge of professional practices as well as of the service offer of each member of the network to their colleagues' competencies”. A good way to ensure that the services complement each other and thus provide peace between the institutions. All we need to know is whether the human resources networks will play the game. 

With 100,000 young people aged 16 years leaving the educational system each year without a professional qualification as well as 4.2 million unemployed persons without any or very limited work, the public powers in France are now taking another look at vocational orientation. Thus, from a sector of weak activity shared by a number of institutions managed by the ministries of Education and Employment, the regions, towns and professional organisations providing training, vocational orientation guidance for young people, workers and the unemployed has become a sector that is now in full growth and a highly political issue.

To form a collaboration between the reputable national Education Ministry which does not care about professional insertion and the Employment Ministry which is now obsessed by it, the position of interdepartmental delegate for information and orientation (DIO) was created in 2006. In 2010, four nominated people had already given up, i.e. one resignation each year! The law of 24 November 2009 on the reform of vocational training and orientation has created a daring assumption: “the only place of orientation”, which, as its name does not indicate, is a network of orientation institutions synergised without the help of the DIO who produces an observational review each year but does not make any obligations.

In parallel to this unpredictable work of coordination and persuasion, the state has expressly provided the employment services with orientation and professional training, by creating the “Pôle Emploi” in 2010, a network of public agencies merging the functions of unemployment benefits and guidance required for returning to the employment market, based on the English job centre model.

Laurent Wauquiez, then secretary of state for employment, has signified this wish to merge by adding 800 psychologists in orientation, previously employed by the National Association for Adult Vocational Training (AFPA) under its authority to the Pôle Emploi in 2010. These institutional modifications have also affected the regional councils, major providers of training and orientation (53% of their expenses amount to 4.2 billion euros each year) for the unemployed. Indeed, the state has reduced the financial resources belonging to the regions – extremely high majority on the left – by abolishing employment tax and freezing the transfers from the National Treasury to the regions. This results in less money for financing their own policies for the benefit of the partners with the Pôle Emploi, somehow adding regional knowledge.

In fact, since 2004, the regions have already started to set up real guidance networks providing vocational orientation through a range of professional skills such as psychology and knowledge of the local needs of companies as regards skills, and have already made documents available on the current local training offers.

By accompanying these political and institutional rivalries, we are in a war of visions on the mission towards providing vocational advice: assessing the suitability of the psychological profile, qualifications with a desired job or forcing a person interested to carry out a job due to a lack of workers and following brief training for the new position. The skills demanded of the orientation advisers (CO) will vary considerably according to these ethical approaches. In the first case, the CO will initially act as a psychologist and in the second, the CO will combine knowledge in the required qualifications with the training offer matched to a field or given area..but will seldom be trained to do psychology.

A solution is to expand the training field of the CO to the working methods of their partners/rivals. This is the aim of the decree dated 4 May 2011, launching a new national name “orientation for all”. If, among the naming criteria, there is the first greeting, personalised guidance, comprehensive information and objectives on jobs and employment opportunities, there is also “training on common skills of employees in different networks and mutual knowledge of professional practices as well as of the service offer of each member of the network to their colleagues' competencies”. A good way to ensure that the services complement each other and thus provide peace between the institutions. All we need to know is whether the human resources networks will play the game.