Abstract
In France, apprenticeship as a system of training has become widespread at every level of qualification over the last 30 years. Usually called alternation, it becomes the fast track for a professionally oriented education and for a successful integration in the labour market. The efficiency of this system, particularly in initial training, is considered as a way of gaining professional competence and integrating a community of work and practice. But what about an alternating programme carried out during an occupational conversion or promotion? This chapter aims at describing the development of a tool designed for competence diagnosis. The latter was built up for a civil service school (National College for Education Management) which trains executives-to-be who contemplate starting a second career. At the beginning of the training, the tool use highlights the role of learning and experience either as a potential obstacle or as an asset for the new position. Hence, it makes it possible to establish the rate and the contents of the alternating training programme for each trainee. Moreover, it underscores the weight of the identity dynamics during this occupational change.
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Notes
- 1.
The contract and the training could last 6 months up to 3 years. The apprentice works part time in a company where he or she is supervised by a tutor. The rest of the time, he or she attends classes in a training centre for apprentices (CFA) during at least 400 h a year.
- 2.
The word alternation is used for different work contracts such as apprenticeship contract and professionalisation contract. It also covers compulsory internships necessary to obtain higher education qualifications at universities (bachelor’s or master’s degree) or at engineering and business schools.
- 3.
ESEN: École supérieure de l’Éducation Nationale. The role of this civil service school is to train administrative and pedagogical executives employed by the Ministry of Education. Every year, it hosts 4,000 to 5,000 trainees trained by permanent and associate trainers or outside contributors.
- 4.
Validation des acquis de l’expérience (VAE).
- 5.
The occupation of secondary cycle school inspector comprises different fields which establish a hierarchy, responsibilities and areas of intervention: there are local authority inspectors, local authority assistant inspectors, National Education inspectors in charge of general or technical education and National Education inspectors in charge of careers advising.
- 6.
For the 2009 promotion, the rate of women was 37%. It varies from 42 to 33% according to the field. There are 57% of women among secondary cycle school teachers (www.esen.education.fr, accessed in May 2010).
- 7.
This scholar argues that human activity is organised and that organisation is steady. Both organisation and steadiness allow worker to adapt to any kind of unforeseen event.
- 8.
A scheme ‘is a functional dynamic totality. It is an invariant organization of behaviour for a given category of situations’ (Vergnaud 2006). Here, the organisation of activity is stable, which is not the case of the activity itself. Because of this steadiness, one can face a wide variety of situations and adapt him or herself to it. Gerard Vergnaud borrowed this concept of scheme from Jean Piaget and enhanced it with four elements: purposes and anticipations, rules of action, inferences in situation and operative invariants.
- 9.
A conceptual structure of a situation is the abstract core that one has to take into account so that his or her action may be relevant and effective. It consists of one or several essential dimensions of the situation, i.e. one or several concepts that one has to be able to estimate in order to diagnose the situation and to understand its present state and its potential evolution (Pastré and Samurçay 2004).
- 10.
After a training, around 40 associate trainers gathered data according to a protocol: observations and self-confrontation interviews on observation records of 50 inspectors.
- 11.
Trainees are already on duty. The first promotion meeting takes place at the beginning of July, and after 6 weeks of vacation, trainees are appointed to a local education authority.
- 12.
Associate trainers are inspectors on duty appointed at the National College for Education Management for 3 years in order to achieve training assignments.
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Astier, P., Petit, L. (2013). Experiential Learning Assessment and Competence Development for a Second Career: The Case of Alternating Training Programmes for Professional Promotion. In: Deitmer, L., Hauschildt, U., Rauner, F., Zelloth, H. (eds) The Architecture of Innovative Apprenticeship. Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5398-3_16
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