Promoting better access for groups under-represented in training is often a goal of individual learning schemes (Section 1). These groups consist mainly of persons with low education, workers in low-skill occupations, workers in non-standard contracts (self-employed, temporary workers, etc.), workers in small firms, but also more specific groups, such as women returning to work after parental leave, freelancers in the cultural sector, etc. Results of ILS achieving this objective are mixed. One common outcome is that highly skilled individuals, when they are eligible for the scheme, tend to be over-represented among participants. As such, individual learning schemes do not appear to be a panacea to increase access of under-represented groups.
Individual Learning Accounts
Participation in ILS by the most disadvantaged groups is likely to depend on the extent to which the schemes target these groups. The Upper Austrian and French schemes are the only ILS for which detailed information is available to assess participation by initial education level, socio-economics status, income level, firm size, and employment status. The learn$ave evaluation study (Leckie et al., 2010[4]) also provides information for the pilot Canadian scheme, and some information is available for the Scottish and US ITA schemes.
4.1.1. Low-skilled and low-income groups
In France, where all individuals in work or looking for work are eligible for the CPF, the least skilled are less likely to participate:
Employees with tertiary education (university or advanced vocational) accounted for 56% of the validated CPF training files over the period 2015-2018, while only 38% of the 2016 labour force had completed tertiary education (Figure 4.1, Panel A). By contrast, and despite higher support rates, individuals with less than upper-secondary education tended to be under-represented among the employees using their CPF: they accounted for only 26% of the validated files over 2015-2018, despite representing 42% of the 2016 labour force.
In 2016, employees in managerial/professional occupations (cadres) had a participation rate in CPF training three times as high as that of blue collar workers (ouvriers) and twice as high as low‑qualified white collar workers (employés) (Balmat, 2018[14]). The gap was much higher for the CPF than for all types of professional training: participation rates of managers and professionals were 3.4 times higher than that of blue collars for the CPF in 2016, while that ratio was 1.7 for all professional training in 2012.
Data from some training funds also show strong inequalities in access to training. In one training fund, managers and professionals (cadres) represented 13% of the 500 000 employees covered, but 17% of those using their CPF; in another one, blue collar workers represented 37% of the 1.5 million employees covered by that training fund, but only 16% of those using their CPF (IGAS, 2017[8]).
Note: Level I and II: Graduate level baccalaureate+3 or 4, bachelor's degree, master's degree or higher. Level III: Diploma level baccalaureate plus 2 years, DUT, BTS, schools health or welfare. Level IV: General, Technological or Professional baccalaureate plus 3 years, BP, BT or equivalent. Level V: Left high school before the final year. Level V bis: Left school during the 1st cycle of general secondary education and abandonment of courses in CAP or BEP before the final year.
Source: Panel A: CDC SI-CPF and 2016 Employment Survey and Land OOE 2009-2017 for Panel B.
Before 2015, almost half of the participants in the Flemish Opleidingscheques were highly educated employees (OECD, 2017[6]). Subsequently, access was restricted to employees with low- and medium‑education level only.
In Upper Austria, thanks to targeting, inequalities in access to training according to education level are less marked than in France. As the Bildungskonto was created to improve the qualification level of workers with medium level VET education (including apprenticeship), only employees with medium level education could initially participate. Eligibility was progressively extended to employees with a Matura (completed upper secondary level, general or vocational) in 2004 and to employees with tertiary education level and low income in 2010. As a result, the participation rate of individuals with tertiary education level is far below the average participation rate in the scheme (0.7% v. 1.6%). Participation of those with medium vocational education level used to be rather high but decreased significantly with the inclusion of individuals with Matura (and, to a lesser extent, those with tertiary education). Participation rates of individuals with apprenticeship certificates or medium level VET were still higher than average in 2009, but the participation of the latter group decreased significantly and reached a level slightly below average in 2016 (Figure 4.1, Panel B). Compared with a Bildungskonto scheme in Vienna in 1996, where the education level was no eligibility criteria, medium-skilled workers are much more represented in the Upper Austrian Bildungskonto, although less now than in the 2000s (Figure 4.2). However, the scheme was not successful at raising participation among the least educated workers who, despite higher subsidy rates, have had low participation rates since the creation of the scheme (0.7% in 2016).
Source: Leitner and Lassnig (1998[18]) Affenzeller et al. (2004[19]) , Land OOE (2017[15]).
The Canadian learn$ave pilot scheme was targeting low-income individuals but was attractive only to a small proportion of that target population, with an estimated take-up rate of around 3% among the eligible population (Leckie et al., 2010[4]). Compared with the eligible population, those who participated tended to be more highly education and were more likely to be employed. Many low‑income people did not see education as a viable option for them personally, even when they valued it. Many participants (around 55% in the three experimental sites) were recent immigrants with a relatively high level of education, probably using the scheme to accredit prior education obtained abroad. However, among those low‑income and low-educated persons who decided to participate, those who participated in the basic learn$ave or the more service intensive Iearn$ave+ had higher enrolment rates in training than those in the control group.
In both Michigan and Washington states, high-school graduates (i.e. workers with medium‑level education) tended to be over-represented in the US ITA in 2016 (Figure 4.3).1 In Michigan, the share of individuals with some college education participating in ITA training was also higher than in the total workforce, while the participation rate of the lowest educated individuals (those with less than high school) was much lower. By contrast, in Washington state, the share of the lowest educated in the Adult programme receiving training through the ITA was higher than in the total workforce.
Source: WIOA Participant Individual Record Layout and US Census Bureau.
Information on the level of education of participants in the Scottish scheme is not routinely collected within the ILA/ITA application process, and has only been gathered through the Learner Survey carried out in 2007. At that time, both working-age individuals with completed upper secondary education or above (NVQ4) and individuals with no or very low qualification levels (NVQ1) were over-represented among ILA participants, while individuals with medium-level education tended to be under-represented (Gallacher et al., 2007[20]).2 In Portugal, individuals with tertiary education levels were also over-represented in 2017, as they made up 32% of the 14 900 users of the Cheque formação, while they represented only 23% of the labour force.3
In Geneva, where eligibility to the scheme is based on a means-test (see Section 2.1) more than 25% of the beneficiaries of the Chèque annuel de formation had not completed compulsory schooling, which is also linked to the very high share of foreign residents in the region (24% in 2014) (Cour des Comptes, 2015[2]).
4.1.2. Non-standard workers
Information on access to ILS according to employment status and/or type of employment contract is scarce.
In France, self-employed workers, while eligible since January 2018, have so far made little use of their CPF. Depending on their type of activity, self-employed workers pay a training levy to one of the seven existing training funds for the self-employed.4 Apart from the fact that they have not yet accumulated many rights on their account, the non-participation of self-employed may also be explained by the fact that self‑employed training funds are not able to identify precisely the individuals who contributed to the scheme, which limits any attempt to advertise the scheme.5
Comprehensive data on the type of contract of employees using the CPF is not available. However, information gathered from the FAF-TT – the training fund for temporary agency workers - indicates a relatively high use of the CPF by temporary agency workers compared with employees in general.6 To some extent, training of temporary agency workers (financed by the CPF or other programmes) is facilitated by the fact that it takes place outside work assignments, under a “contrat de mission formation” established by the temporary work agency, which provides income support during the training period. However, many of the training courses undertaken were mandatory/regulatory training programmes, such as the electrical accreditation, chemical/nuclear risks accreditations and CACES, which were previously financed by the temporary work agencies out of their own training budget.
In Upper Austria, the participation of self-employed workers in the Bildungskonto appeared to have been above average since 2009, with a participation rate ranging from 2.2% to 2.6% until 2014, which even increased to 3.3% in 2015 due to increased participation of own-account workers. No information is available on the type of training that they undertook.
By contrast, in Scotland, the proportion of ILA/ITA applications by self-employed workers remained between 4% and 5% over the period spanning 2011-12 and 2017-18, when the self-employed represented about 11% of the total labour force in 2016.7
4.1.3. Other groups
Another group with generally lower access to training is workers in small and medium-sized enterprises. Data for 2016 show that participation rates in the CPF differed significantly depending on firm size. For example, participation was four times lower in firms with fewer than 10 employees than in firms with 250‑499 employees (Figure 4.4). While the firm size ranges are not directly comparable, comparisons with participation rates in professional training in general in 2012 suggest higher inequality in access for the CPF (Figure 4.4). This is consistent with French employees resorting to the CPF in 92% of the cases via their employer in 2016, as large firms with developed human resource departments are more likely to advertise the CPF scheme to their employees. A recent qualitative evaluation finds that enterprises with fewer than 11 employees form the majority of the member companies in the four training funds studied, but are largely under-represented in terms of share of CPF files (Pluricité-Itineré, 2018[21]). For example, in Constructys, the construction sector training fund, 91% of member enterprises have fewer than 11 employees, but they account for only 11% of the CPF training files dealt with by the fund (Pluricité‑Itinére, 2018).
Source: Balmat (2018[14]), Gossiaux and Pommier (2013[22])
In Upper Austria, in the 2000s, the Bildungskonto also included “special programmes” targeted at specific groups. The first of these groups concerned women returning to work after maternity leave and provided education and training measures for groups of about ten persons, before they ended their maternity leave. Training providers could apply to design and implement such programmes and, if approved by the regional government, would receive direct financing of 75% of the costs of the training at the beginning of the project – unlike in the standard Bildungskonto where fees are reimbursed to the individual after the training programme is completed. However, difficulties in filling up the courses resulted in rather long waiting times for the participants as well as high per capita costs as programmes ended up running with a smaller number of participants (Oberösterreichischer Landesrechnungshof, 2009[11]). The regional government also developed another type of programme called “Innovative projects” that called on providers to develop training measures for groups that were particularly hard to reach, such as non-standard employees in the cultural sector, temporary agency workers, youth having completed education but wanting to change career course, etc. No real evaluation of these programmes is available, but the Upper Austrian Court of Audit criticised their complexity and their implementation which was too demanding (Oberösterreichischer Landesrechnungshof, 2009[11]).
While participation in training varies widely across OECD countries, what is common to all countries is that those who would need training the most tend to train the least (OECD, 2019[23]). People with the highest educational attainment are more able to adopt a “career management approach”; they tend to be more eager and able to train. Under-represented groups face more and greater obstacles to participation in training, such as: lack of time, financial constraints, lack of prerequisites, lack of expected professional or wage gains from training, negative feelings about training often associated with difficulties experienced in initial education, etc. These obstacles arise for all kinds of training, and thus training schemes, but this section will discuss whether and to what extent individual learning schemes could make a difference.
4.2.1. Co-financing and income support
Co-financing by the individual, which is required in a number of ILS, may be a barrier for the more disadvantaged groups. In the Canadian pilot learn$ave targeted at low-income individuals, recruitment difficulties reflected sceptical attitudes and low confidence of the eligible population in their ability to save (Leckie et al., 2010[4]). In the Scottish ILA, although relatively low, the initial co-financing of GBP 10 was removed in 2008 precisely as it was thought to be a barrier for the most disadvantaged. French employees wanting to use their CPF autonomously – i.e. without informing their employers – mentioned the difficulty to bring complementary funding out of their own pockets when the support provided by the training fund did not cover the full training costs (Pluricité-Itineré, 2018[21])8. Co-financing is also likely to have discouraged those with low incomes to undertake training. This difficulty might even be higher in Austria, where participants have to pay all training costs up front and can only ask for support/reimbursement once training is completed. In addition, although more disadvantaged groups are reimbursed 60% of the training fees instead of 30% in the standard case, the remaining 40% can represent a significant personal contribution for low-income individuals (up to EUR 1 600 when getting the maximum support).
Apart from covering the direct training costs (such as fees), another financial barrier to training comes from the absence of income support during the training period in most schemes. This can represent a barrier for individuals wishing to undertake long-term training, and may even reduce training options for those with low income/wealth to short duration training only. In the United States, for example, to be eligible for ITA training, WIOA participants must demonstrate that they possess not only the requisite skills but also the financial resources to complete the programme. A financed training leave exists in Upper Austria, but although its use by Bildungskonto participants has increased over the years, it concerned only 3% of all participants in 2017.9 In Flanders, the Opleidingscheque can be combined with a paid educational leave, a right negotiated by the social partners for employees to take up to 125 hours of training per year for programmes linked to occupations with labour shortages. During that period, the employee will continue to receive his/her wage up to a ceiling, while the employer will get compensation from the regional government. Employers cannot refuse an employee’s request, but there must be mutual agreement on when the training will take place.10 This right is not available to jobseekers, however, and employees in small and medium enterprises appear to have difficulties in translating it into practice, as SMEs are probably less inclined to grant permission for paid educational leave due to the greater relative difficulty they face to plan and cover absences (OECD, 2019[24]). Besides, the lists of eligible training programmes are quite limited. In France, it used to be possible to combine the CPF with the Congé Individuel de Formation (CIF) which allows employees and jobseekers with past social contribution records to undertake training while receiving replacement income for up to one year. Despite this, take-up remained very low.11 The new Congé de transition that will replace the CIF in 2020 will be restricted to retraining paths only, but it remains to be seen whether it will cover more workers than the CIF once it is implemented.
4.2.2. Administrative burdens
Another obstacle often mentioned in the case studies is the administrative burden (e.g. application process, course choice, etc.), which is likely to affect the more disadvantaged groups disproportionately, since they tend to be less able to navigate complex systems. In France, the application process and, in particular sorting out the financial arrangements (ingénierie financière), were complex. While jobseekers and employees of large firms received help from Pôle Emploi or the human resource department of their employer, other workers often remained without assistance (IGAS, 2017[8]). The reformed CPF scheme will simplify the process and is likely to improve the situation in this respect. Potential users will be faced with a single application/website, the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations will be in charge for everything (instead of responsibilities being scattered across many individual training funds), and the accounts will be expressed in monetary terms rather than time, which will make them easier to understand. As mentioned in 3.1.2, the previous ILA programme process was also cumbersome in Scotland, and especially for the self-employed, who had to provide tax forms for their annual earnings.12 Paperwork and administrative hurdles were also important in the Canadian learn$ave and participation – both recruitment and enrolment in training – would have been lower if local community organisations had not assisted participants (Leckie et al., 2010[4]).13
4.2.3. Information and counselling
Even when finance is available and processes are kept relatively simple, more disadvantaged groups may be less able to navigate an individual learning scheme for a number of reasons:
They might be less aware of the existence of the scheme;
They might have poorer digital skills which will make it more difficult for them to navigate the website;
They are more likely to lack information to make a proper training choice, notably information about labour market prospects for particular occupations and about the quality of the training provider and their programmes;
They may also misperceive their own capabilities for various occupations and training programmes.
Providing information, advice and guidance to facilitate access to ILS, along the lines of capability approach, is thus central to promote participation among the most disadvantaged groups.
In Singapore, there are support facilities available other than the ones offered online. If the user is not internet savvy, he/she can call a hotline to obtain assistance. SkillsFuture Singapore also organises the SkillsFuture Advice Workshop, a community-based workshop14, to explain the SkillsFuture initiative and how citizens can use SkillsFuture Credit to plan their skills and career development. Between October 2017 and December 2018, over 50 000 individuals attended 3 000 workshops, but it is not yet known whether these workshops were effective in increasing participation. The slow increase in SFC take-up suggests relatively low conversion rates.
Very few individual learning schemes include specific counselling services, i.e. counselling services directly related to the scheme. Counselling is also rarely mandatory. In the US ITA, counselling is mandatory if the local Workforce Investment Board (WIB) has chosen the “structured customer choice” approach or the “guided customer choice” approach (see Section 2.4) – and most WIBs actually chose the latter. An evaluation from the early 2000s could not find any statistically significant difference in employment outcomes between the different approaches, but individuals under the third approach (i.e. the “maximum customer choice” approach where counselling was optional and rarely taken up), were found to consider fewer training opportunities than those under the other approaches, which involved mandatory counselling (McConnel et al., 2006[17]). In the Tuscan Carta ILA, individuals could participate only if they were supported by a PES counsellor (and sometimes a psychologist) to develop a training project and an employment plan.
In France, a new counselling service, the Conseil en Évolution Professionnelle (CEP), was created by the same 2013 social partners agreement that introduced the CEP. The CEP is not meant to be attached to the CPF, since it can be used also for career/professional counselling that would not involve training and CEP use is not compulsory to mobilise the CPF. The CEP includes a range of individualised services to: i) inform and define the scope of training opportunities; ii) provide help and advice in building a professional project, and iii) to follow up in the project implementation, including the financial engineering.15 No information is available on the number of CPF users who actually resorted to the CEP, but it appears to have remained little used up to now. No specific budget was allocated to the CEP until 2018, but in the reformed training system, a share of France Compétence budget is now dedicated to the CEP for employees. There are also plans to advertise it better on the new CPF website.
Information on the use of counselling is also scarce for the other schemes. In Upper Austria, a number of participants were informed about the Bildungskonto by the Chamber of Labour counselling services, who appear to have made a real difference in allowing these individuals not already convinced of the interest of education and training to use the scheme. In Scotland, a number of participants in the ILA/ITA are directed to the scheme through jobcentres (managed by the UK Department for Work and Pensions) or through Skills Development Scotland Careers Advisers. The new My World of Work website provides a more accessible route for many to identify a suitable course, but perhaps not for those with language or literacy problems or poor IT skills, and there appears to be no clear indication on the website on how to access a Career Adviser. In Germany, participants in the Bildungsprämie are requested to attend an information session, and also have to meet a counsellor, but they can do so only once (Euréval, 2012[3]).
← 1. The same is true for the year 2011.
← 2. However the survey reported high rates of non-reply for qualification held.
← 3. Source: Araujo (2017[12]) and Ministry of Education 2018.
← 4. The contribution is calculated either as a percentage of the social security ceiling (used to calculate some social contributions) and thus corresponds to an amount in Euros (varying each year), or as a percentage of their turnover.
← 5. Contributions are currently paid to the ACOSS, the Central Agency of Social Security Associations, which then distributes it to the own-account worker training funds. It is not clear yet how many own account workers training funds will remain in the new system. The Inspection Générale des Affaires Sociales (IGAS) should publish a report in June 2019 on these funds. During the transition phase to the new CPF, access has been closed for the self-employed and should be re-opened in 2020.
← 6. In 2015, the number of temporary agency workers corresponded to 547 000 full-time equivalents; in 2016, about 10 500 CEP files were treated by the FAF-TT (source: Rapport d’activité 2015-2016 du FAF‑TT http://www.gip-communication.com/flipbook/7738_Faftt_RapportActivite_2016/29/#zoom=z.), i.e. a participation rate of 1.9% against 0.9% in 2016 for all employees. Autonomous demands, i.e. not transiting through the temporary work agency, represented about 4 % of the CEP files.
← 7. Source: SDS and Office for National Statistics LFS.
← 8. Eight employees out of the 60 surveyed were in that situation and had to bring co-financing comprised between EUR 250 and EUR 1 200.
← 9. Source: OECD Secretariat based on Land OOE 2009-2017.
← 10. Source: https://www.activpayroll.com/news-articles/belgian-payroll-the-right-to-paid-educational-leave.
← 11. In 2016, 33 000 CIF files were validated for permanent employees and 9 000 for employees with fixed-term contracts (République Française, 2018[36]), which amounted to take-up rates of 0.16% and 0.36% respectively.
← 12. Previously, there had been a requirement to even provide audited accounts, which was identified as a barrier for low-income self-employed such as childminders (The Scottish Government, 2008[35])
← 13. In rural sites, community organisations staff sometimes even went to people’s home to offer help in filling forms.
← 14. It works with the Community Development Councils – for the unemployed and people who need social assistance, the unions’ learning hub (e2i) and neighbourhood People’s Associations.
← 15. Until end-2019, the CPF can be delivered by five different institutions, depending on the status of the individual: the Association pour l’Emploi des Cadres (APEC) for managers and professionals; the Missions Locales for young jobseekers; Cap Emploi for disabled workers; Pôle Emploi for other jobseekers; and the social partner institutions managing the CIF (OPACIF and FONGECIF) for employees. In the reformed training system, France Compétences, the new public agency in charge of regulating and financing professional training and apprenticeships, will be in charge of organising the CPF for employees, which will be contracted out through public tender at the regional level.