Description
Avenir’ Pro aims to give vocational high school students key competences to easing their access to the labour market. The initiative is the result of a collaborative effort between France Travail, the Missions locales and the Directorate-General for School Education (DGSCO – Ministry of National Education) based on feedback from pilot projects carried out since the 2020-2021 school year.
To achieve its objectives, Avenir’ Pro is based on two pillars:
- The support of the Employment Network (Réseau pour l’emploi) and particularly through the association between France Travail and the Missions locales (public employment service addressing young jobseekers) to support educational teams developing actions that foster connections with the professional environment.
- The intervention of the Employment Network with vocational high school students to prepare and secure their future entry into the labour market.
At the heart of Avenir’ Pro is the partnership between France Travail, the Missions locales and high schools. This collaboration aims to create the conditions for co-construction and development of initiatives, which can enrich the path of high school students and encourage their autonomy in their professional pathways.
This support includes:
- Commencing in November (aligned with the school calendar), to be consistent with the key stages of the high school students’ journey.
- A total of 4 collective interventions carried out by the partner France Travail agencies or the Missions locales on topics defined collectively beforehand.
- Individual discussions with young people, either on request or during “office hours” in high schools to provide personalised guidance on employment.
- Securing courses at the end of high school and until December of year N+1, ensuring no young person is left uncertain about his/her future.
- Offering to teaching teams useful and complementary tools and methods to support high school students in their job search.
- Collaborating with businesses to implement actions for the future professional integration of high school students:
- Strengthening high school students’ connections with the professional environment through mentoring, committed sports clubs and other activities.
- Developing opportunities in their local employment area such as fairs, forums, and company visits.
- A dedicated application (in development) to facilitate discussions between students and Avenir’ Pro advisors.
Beneficiaries
This scheme is aimed exclusively at vocational high school students at CAP (Certificat d’aptitude professionnelle) or Bac Pro (Baccalauréat professionnel) level. In France, the unemployment rate for young people aged 15- to 24-year-olds was around 20% in 2020. Six months after the end of the school year, the unemployment rate for young people from vocational high schools was 42% for CAPs and 30% for BacPros. For low-skilled young people, lack of knowledge about companies and career prospects, most often accentuated by a lack of networking, poses a major barrier to access employment. This is an attempt to correct this imbalance.
Countries
Education level and sector
This initiative is not limited to a specific economic sector, but is instead open to all sectors, but only in the last year of vocational high school education. The initiative is being rolled out nationwide across France (2,200 vocational high schools targeted by September 2025) following a pilot phase initially limited to certain establishments in three French regions which has since been gradually expanded.
Level of implementation / Scope
The implementation is homogeneous at the national level with some local adjustments. The pilot phase was launched in 2021, the nationwide roll-out will be finalised by September 2025. The system will continue to operate in all 2,200 existing vocational high schools across France.
Aims of policy/initiative
Avenir’ Pro aims to give vocational high school students the ‘keys’ to easing their access to the labour market. Avenir’ Pro is implemented in synergy with educational teams, including management teams, teaching teams and local businesses. It consists of two phases:
- A period of group coaching within the classroom, aiming at giving students the necessary knowledge to look for a job adapted to their aspirations and skills, and preparing them for job interviews.
- A period of individualised support, during the five months following the end of the school year.
From January to June, each partner agency of France Travail designates a counsellor who accompanies, at 90% of their working time, around 100 pupils in four high schools located nearby their agency. The content of the interventions from January to June may vary depending on the counsellor and the profile of the pupils (diploma being prepared, number of pupils in the class, activities already carried out by the pedagogical team outside Avenir’ Pro, etc.). However, its general organisation is common to all members and is based on the following themes:
- Promoting and developing professional skills;
- Understanding the labour market;
- Mastering digital tools;
- Preparing job interviews; and,
- Writing CVs and cover letters.
In parallel with these thematic collective workshops, the counsellor may, if the students’ schedule allow, set up ‘standbys’ or individual interview times with the students in order to better understand their projects and offer them tailored support that is more adapted to their needs.
After the end of the school year, the counsellor maintains contact with the pupils by means of telephone reminders, exchanges of emails, text messages, or meetings at France Travail local offices. Pupils who need it can thus be offered individualised support until a proper solution is found.
The initiative must be coordinated with the objectives of the teaching team and must be part of the school calendar. In principle, each intervention must be co-organised by the France Travail counsellor and a member of the teaching team. The entire scheme requires, throughout the year, support from the Employment Network (Réseau pour l’emploi) to the pedagogical teams of the high schools, to the head-teachers and to the offices of the participating companies (so called Bureau des Entreprises, BDEs). This collaboration includes:
- Organising of exchanges of practices and supporting educational teams so that they can take advantage of effective job-search tools and use them independently;
- Developing and participating in events and/or actions that promote the development of a network;
- Mobilising the network of partners; and,
- Developing innovative actions.
Features and types of activities implemented
There are two main types of activities:
- Collaboration between the Employment Network (Réseau pour l’emploi) and the pedagogical teams of the vocational high schools, the head-teachers and the participating companies (BDEs).
- Intervention with vocational high schools to prepare and secure student’s future entry into the labour market, in particular by four collective interventions on the following topics:
- Getting to know each other better and looking towards the future – taking stock of skills and how to promote them.
- Knowing the expectations of recruiters and the local job market helps students to find their place.
- Organising the job search effectively, applying for positions and getting job interviews.
- Preparing the interviews to get hired
Individual exchanges aimed at providing a personalised response to the young person’s various needs (support in finding job opportunities, prepare an application and recruitment interview, help to resolve obstacles to employment and provide information on the range of partnership services that can be mobilised). These exchanges are implemented as part of the “office hours” in the high schools throughout the school year and during the Training Period in Professional Environment (Période de Formation en Milieu Professionnel). These exchanges can also be done remotely, by phone or video.
Securing pathways out of high schools: As soon as the results of the diploma are published, each young person is contacted to discuss their situation and future job aspirations. The link is maintained with young people without clear visions of their professional future in order to support them according to their needs. At the start of the N+1 school year, a collective information session is organised within the establishment to present the France Travail – Mission locale service offer. Individual discussions can be proposed to consider other solutions or pathways adapted to the needs of the young person and support their implementation. Situations outside the field of employment (family, social problems, etc.) are shared at each stage with the educational and pedagogical teams of the establishment.
The creation of an app dedicated to Avenir’ Pro, specifically adapted to the needs of vocational high school students, is essential to the success of the scheme by facilitating:
- Exchanges between speakers and high school students;
- The transmission of information and documents from speakers to students;
- Access for high school students to a toolbox adapted to their specific needs
Target group
This initiative targets vocational high schools (through a better use of their programme and better employability of their students therefore improved reputation), local employers (with an improved quality of the pool of candidates), local and national authorities including the national education system (through an improvement of their available schemes) and finances as this new scheme prevents unemployment and therefore saves time and money of the public employment service.
Resources
This initiative mobilises France Travail counsellors in collaboration with the pedagogical teams of high schools. As part of the pilot project and expansion, the programme received funding from the European Social Fund (ESF+) as follows:
2022: EUR 1,080,000 (100% EU-REACT ESF),
2023: EUR 2,064,000 (100% EU-REACT ESF) and
2024: EUR 5,183,000 (95%).
The estimated cost per student of Avenir’ Pro is approximately EUR 340. This amount is increased by costs related to the experimental process, which will decrease once the system is more widespread.
Evaluation of the measure
In 2024, each region produced an assessment, and two sessions were organised in July in the presence of all stakeholders to collectively evaluate the measures. This feedback made it possible to identify strong recommendations for the future. In addition, a monthly monitoring system put in place aims to continuously improve the Avenir' Pro system and monitor compliance with commitments. It is based on the information systems of France Travail, the Missions Locales and the national education authorities.
A. Impact measures
- Quarterly monitoring:
Number of young people planning to continue their studies or enter the labour market at the end of the school year.
- Annual monitoring:
Number of young people with a solution for the period of training in professional environment at the end of schoolyear.
Number of young people without a known solution at the end of high school.
Number of young people without a solution identified and accompanied at the end of high school.
Integration rate of young people 6 months after leaving high school.
Integration rate of young people 18 months after leaving high school.
B. Monitoring indicators
- Monthly follow-up:
Number of participating high schools.
Number of high school students affected.
Number of collective interventions carried out.
Number of high school students who have benefited from one or more individual exchanges.
Number of events organised (depending on the nature of the events, including the number of employer interventions organised).
Number of young mentees (source: 1jeune1solution platform).
Satisfaction rate of high school students and educational teams.
In addition, surveys of France Travail’s counselors show that they feel that there is a significant added value among pupils. They believe that their interventions are likely to improve the pupils’ knowledge of the labour market, their ability to use the various job search tools, or their professional position and success at a job interview. The teachers feel that this system is useful to young people and that France Travail is a good partner to help them. They also mention that coaching enables students to find a job better suited to their aspirations and skills, or to find a job, possibly on a work-study basis, more quickly. Over 95% of school directors, consider that the system should be rolled out across France. Finally, students’ feedback is also encouraging. Apart from the problems related to absenteeism, they were enthusiastic about the content of the workshops offered to them and respectful of the legitimacy of the external speakers. Exercises related to digital job search tools or mock job interviews were particularly appreciated.
Evidence of effectiveness of the measure
In January 2023, six months after the end of the 2021/2022 school year, the probability of employment of high school students who have benefited from Avenir’ Pro was 23.2%. The probability of employment for students in the control group of high schools was 16%. It is likely that Avenir’ Pro will have different effects depending on the profile of pupils. Very good students intending to pursue studies are probably not very concerned by this scheme. However, students who hesitate to continue their studies or who have decided to start their professional career at the end of the school year are more directly concerned, potentially impacted.
Using a predictive model, it appears that the impact of Avenir’ Pro focuses on students with the lowest predicted probability of being employed 6 months after leaving school. Avenir’ Pro would increase the 6-month employment rate of students below the median of the employment probability distribution by 74% over this time horizon. For the lowest quartile, the impact of Avenir’ Pro is even stronger, since the employment rate of students who have benefited from it is twice as high as that of students from control high schools: from 10% to 20.9%.
The review of the number of days worked since July 2022 for young people in employment in January 2023 confirms this finding. The number of days worked by pupils with a predicted probability of employment below the median increased by 81% and that of those in the lowest quartile was 33 days, an increase of 200% compared to that of pupils in the control group, equal to 11 days. These results suggest that the intervention of counsellors not only increased job insertion at 6 months but also improved the duration of employment episodes, especially for students with the least access to employment 6 months after passing their CAP or BacPro.
Success factors
As indicated above, the two collective evaluations made it possible to identify and confirm success factors:
The activity must start as early as possible in the school year in order to plan interventions as soon as high schools build their timetables and take better account of periods of training, examinations and leave, and ensure consistency with the needs of high school students in view of the highlights of the school year. The planning of activities should be co-constructed with the high school teams to guarantee an effective implementation of the planned activities and to guarantee the engagement of all participants.
The partnership with rectorates and vocational high schools is essential to foster mutual knowledge in order to better understand ecosystems and their respective functioning This partnership is also crucial to develop collaboration with business offices. Therefore, a well-constructed and strong partnership with the whole ecosystem (rectorates, vocational high school, business offices, local public employment service) is key to the implementation of this scheme.
Regarding Avenir' Pro interventions and content:
- Their content must be co-constructed with the teaching teams to act more in complementarity throughout the course and to guarantee teacher (and high school administration) engagement;
- The teaching teams must beaccompanied in order to be able to take control of certain tools (in particular the digital tools of the Emploi store) and themes to make sure they master the tools they are expected to promote;
- The implementation must be co-constructed and therefore programmed on dedicated times and adapted in terms of duration;
- The principle of systematic co-animation with a teacher must be respected;
- The commitment of France Travail and the Missions Locales management teams is essential to coordinate action with vocational high schools by integrating Avenir' Pro in the agency strategy and to limit situations of professional isolation (most of the activity is carried out outside the agencies). This is part of the strong local partnership that has to exist to successfully implement this scheme.
