FAQ Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship training allows students to learn a trade and to integrate more easily into the life and culture of the company. It is a training system based on an alternating practical and theoretical phase. It is a real gateway to employment and professional integration.

Apprenticeship training comprises two types of contract:
the apprenticeship contract and the professionalisation contract, both of which meet the same objective of increasing the employee’s skills by combining work in a company with theoretical training.

What are the advantages of choosing an apprenticeship programme?

Apprenticeship trainings allow students to develop a complete professional project thanks to a diploma or qualification course and practical experience in a company.

There are many advantages for students choosing this kind of programme:

• Obtaining a degree or qualification from a wide range of professions;
• Benefiting from free training costs as they are paid by the company;
• Putting theoretical lessons into practice;
• Being paid during training as an employee; To have easier access to employment, thanks to the professional experience acquired in a company.

What are the advantages for the employer?

Recruiting a work-study student has many advantages for a company, such as training a future employee, teaching him or her a trade and integrating him or her into the life and culture of the company. It means recruiting a person capable of adapting to the needs of the company. In addition, financial advantages are offered to the employer who recruits a work-study student.

Who for?

• Students aged between 16 and 29;
• Certain groups may enter apprenticeships after the age of 29:
• apprentices preparing for a diploma or title higher than the one obtained;
• Disabled workers;
• people who are planning to set up or take over a business
• high-level sportsmen and women.

Which employers?

• Companies in the craft, commercial, industrial and agricultural sectors, as well as employers in associations and the liberal professions;
• Employers in the non-industrial and commercial public sector (State, territorial and hospital civil services, as well as public administrative establishments).

Who for?

• Young people aged 16-25;
• Jobseekers aged 26 and over;
• Recipients of the revenu de solidarité active (RSA), the allocation de solidarité spécifique (ASS) or the allocation aux adultes handicapés (AAH)
• Recipients of the single-parent allowance (API) in the overseas departments and communities of Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin and Saint Pierre-et-Miquelon;
• People who have benefited from a subsidised contract.

Which employers?

• All employers subject to the financing of continuing vocational training.The State, local authorities and their public administrative establishments may not conclude professionalisation contracts.

What are the working conditions of the “work-study” student?

The work-study student, called “alternant” in France, is an employee in his own right. As such, the laws, regulations and collective agreement of the professional branch as well as that of the company are applicable to them under the same conditions as to other employees.
Working hours are identical to those of other employees. The employer must allow the trainee to follow theoretical and professional courses. This training time is included in the actual working time.

What is the role of the employer?

• to promote the professional integration of the trainee in the company;
• to give him the necessary means for practical training;
• to enable the tutor or apprenticeship master to provide support for the work-study student, while carrying out his own work. The arrival of an apprenticeship trainee in the company requires the employer to appoint a tutor or apprenticeship master, depending on the contract chosen, who will accompany the trainee in his or her practical and theoretical training.

What is the role of the work-study student?

• To follow the training assiduously;
• To integrate well into the company;
• To respect the organisation of the company and the training institution.

What is the role of the FLD?

• ensure the theoretical training of the work-study student for the acquisition of the degree concerned;
• ensuring and closely monitoring the partnership with the company.

What is the role of the tutor or the apprenticeship supervisor?

The task of the apprenticeship supervisor is to contribute to the acquisition by the work-study student in the company of skills corresponding to the qualification sought and the title or diploma prepared for in the training course. He is therefore the one who :

• welcomes the work-study student to the company,
• introduces the work-study student to the company’s staff and activities,
• informs the work-study student of all the company’s internal rules and practices,
• accompany the work-study student in discovering the job,
• organises and plans the workstation for the alternating student,
• enables the work-study student to acquire the professional knowledge needed to carry out the job,
• keeps abreast of the work-study student’s training path and the results obtained,
• remains in contact with the training organisation for monitoring the work-study student in the company,
• assesses the acquisition of the work-study student’s professional skills.