On the Development of Inclusive Key Competences within the French Educational and Training System

Key competences are becoming increasingly important for coping with inclusion and the requirements of change in today's rapidly changing world of business and technology. In France, although the debate concerning the notion of competences was launched by social partners in the 1970s, the move towards the use of a multidimensional practice-based concept of competences was effectively launched during the 1980 (Cannac & Cegos, 1985; Bouteiller & Gilbert, 2005). At the beginning of this period, the Ministry of education introduced its own VET qualification referential standards connected with the targeted occupational profiles in terms of three descriptors: capacities, know-how competences and associated knowledge. In connection with these competence-based VET referential standards, the labour market authorities created in 1993 the “Operational Repertory of Trades and Occupations (ROME)” which underwent further enrichment and improvements during the last decades (Dif, 2010). Then followed further actions and reforms for the promotion of more inclusive key competence development framework instruments such as: (a)-the establishment by the Ministry of National Education (Decree of 11 July 2006) of a common ground key-competences programme within initial compulsory education, which was recently reformed and extended (Decree of 31 March 2015); (b)-the introduction of a “framework programme for sustainable integration within the labour market through access to key-competences of mainly vulnerable people by the Ministry of labour in 2008; (c)-the establishment of a “referential standards framework for professionally situated competences (CCSP) in 2006 by the “National Anti-Illiteracy Agency” (ANLCI, 2009); d)- the introduction by the social partners of a referential standards framework for the development of knowledge and professional competences called S3CP or CléA (Decree 172, 13 February 2015). This paper is an investigation into the development of key competence instruments and their inclusive role of young and adult people (including disadvantaged people). The adopted investigation methodology is mainly based on recent scientific desk research and documentation, completed by a set of interviews conducted with experts and representatives of different involved stakeholders. One of the main outcomes of this research shows that the key competences are generally observed to be effectively more inclusive when they are implemented through work-based learning programmes (as in apprenticeship-type schemes) than in those of the school-based system.