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Two Nations of Shopkeepers: Training for Retailing in France and Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Valerie Jarvis  and
S.J. Prais
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Abstract

Previous comparisons of French and British vocational training, published by the National Institute in this series, have focused on mechanics, electricians, construction workers and office workers; these drew attention to the importance of French full-time vocational secondary schools for 14-18 year-olds. This article compares training for the retail trades in the two countries during the present period of structural change brought about by the advance of self-service. in the light of French experience, current British policies for raising the numbers trained in retailing occupations, and for more coherent training standards, are critically examined.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 128 , May 1989 , pp. 58 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

(1) Based on returns from employers (Employment Gazette, January 1987, pp.38,44; and Annuaire Statistique, 1986, p.716). The great number of casual and part-time employees in this industry, and of family members attached formally or informally to smaller shops, makes it difficult to speak with precision of the total numbers employed. Some part-timers may work in a number of shops and are duplicated in these statistics. Under-counting of casual employees is more than likely in both countries. Estimates of numbers employed in this industry are sensitive to the statistical definitions used, and should be treated with caution.

(2) From the population censuses of Britain in 1981 and of France in 1982.

(3) Despite its obvious importance for the economics of training, no statistical survey seems to have been carried out in Britain to establish rates of leaving of new employees in this industry. Some pointers to the current position are given in a recent report by NEDO, Part-time working in the Distributive Trades (Vol. 1, Training Practices and Career Opportunities, Vol.2, Evidence from Company Case Studies and Employee Attitude Survey, NEDO, 1988-9). The analytic approach based on ‘survival curves’ was explored in articles some thirty years ago (and still worth reading) by H Silcock in J. Roy. Stat. Soc., 1954, p.429; K F Lane and J E Andrew, ibid., 1955, p.296; and by D J Bartholemew, ibid., 1959, p.232. See also A Gregory, The growth of part-time work in grocery in Britain and France, Retail and Distribution Management, September 1987.

(4) The prohibition of resale price maintenance agreements in the UK at the end of the 1950s permitted price-competition between different kind of shops, in place of the previous attenuated competition in accompanying service at fixed prices. Following the abolition of RPM, consumers were able to express their choice in the market as between a lower price combined with less service, on the one hand, and a higher price with more service on the other; they clearly preferred more of the former. The continued trend in that direction—thirty years after the change in legislation—must however be attributed to costs and other factors as suggested above.

(5) National Institute Economic Review, May 1986, May 1987, and National Institute Discussion Paper No. 130.

(6) National Institute Economic Review, August 1983, pp.61-3.

(7) See, for example, the books for Arbeitslehre courses on textiles and statistics produced by teachers in Berlin for their comprehensive school pupils (available from the Pedagogisches Zentrum, Berlin 31).

(8) The present study is based mainly on comparisons of qualifications in the two countries (in distinction from the more resource-intensive studies of matched plants carried out for our associated comparisons with Germany). Discussions were held in 1987-88 with eleven vocational colleges and schools, and with representatives of the ministries, training organisations and examining bodies in the two countries. in addition, we visited nineteen employers (mostly large and raiddle-sized shops with a particular interest in draining). Detailed comparisons of the qualifying examinations in the two countries were made with the help of teachers in vocational colleges. For a previous, very brief, comparison of the systems of retail training in France and Britain, see Tony Parkinson Associates, Review of Distributive Industry Education and Training Needs (Further Education Unit, RP245, 1985), Appendix 4, pp.28-29; it also summarised the main vocational provisions for this sector in the Netherlands, US, New Zealand and Japan. Recent useful studies of British training for retailing are to be found in two reports prepared for the Distributive Trades EDC, Youth Training and the Distributive Trades (NEDO, 1986) and C Trinder, Young People's Employment in Retailing (NEDO, 1986); also relevant are Retailing and NVQ:A study of the application of the four-level structure to the retail industry (Further Education Unit, 1987), and Education and Training at Sainsbury's: A report by HMI (HMSO, 1987). The current French situation is described in the CEREQ Dossier, Formation et Emploi—Les emplois du commerce et de la vente (Collection des Etudes no. 22, April 1986).

(9) Till 1986 known as Lycées d'enseignement professionnel (LEP).

(10) See, for example, Board of Education, Report of the Consultative Committee, The Education of the Adolescent (HMSO, 1926), esp.pp.31-2.

(11) See M-C Combes, L'Apprentissage en France (CEREQ, Paris, 1987); and J Biret, M-C Combes, P Lechaux, Centres de Formation d'Apprentis et Formes d'Apprentissage (CEREQ, Collection d'etudes, no.9, Paris, 1984).

(12) The position described here relates to mid-1986; since then the BTEC ‘General’ courses have been replaced by the Certificate of Pre-vocational Education and BTEC ‘First’ courses. The latter are still in the process of change and development, and it seems too early to attempt an assessment here. There is also the complication that the previous nationwide externally-set and externally-marked examinations for core subjects under BTEC General have been replaced by tests and coursework set and marked by each local collego. The consequent lack of uniformity amongst colleges in content and standards has been a worry to employers and teachers—though BTEC remains confident of the correctness of its approach (see, for example, the letters in The Times Educational Supplement for 3 June 1988 under the heading ‘BTEC students let down by amateur moderation system’; and complaints from the universities originating in the lack of ‘external moderation’ of marking, which have reached an ‘impasse’ in discussions with BTEC, reported in The Times Higher Education Supplement, 10 June 1988). Perhaps the time has come for an independent inquiry into the principles governing the development of BTEC courses and testing (as part of the inquiry suggested in section 5 below).

(13) A comprehensive enumeration of all specialised trade bodies has not proved possible here, but we believe that the numerically most important have been covered. For further qualifying bodies, see the study by the Further Education Unit, Retailing and NVO (1987), pp. 29-30 and 53-4. The total of 1,552 successful students in 1985-86 reported there (p.20) is higher than our total of 600 in table 1 mainly because they have included some 800 who have qualified at the Institute of Meat (the French had 5,000 qualifying at this level in that year); the latter have been excluded here because the retailing elements of these courses are subsidiary to craft aspects.

(14) The tabulations that are available in both countries relate to employees (that is, exdude the self-employed); note that table 2 is based on the occupation of the respondent, not his industry, since we are here concerned particularly with the training of the great majority of those entering the industry as sales assistants. Alternative statistical analyses by industry of employment were available to us on a comparable basis only for retailing and wholesaling combined; they show similar results except for the top educational categories (which rise to 6 per cent in France, and 5 in Britain), and the lowest category (which falls to 59 per cent in France, and 87 in Britain).

(15) In addition in both countries there is much informal training—difficult to measure—and learning by experience (‘the university of life’); all this lies outside the scope of the present study, the concern of which is with training which provides the youngster with a recognised standard of competence and transferable skills.

(16) Some duplication is possible with those mentioned above as qualifying at higher levels.

(17) This relates to the number completing the main intermediate phase of these courses, known as the ‘exploratory module’; about double that number took an ‘introductory module’, which seems to require attendance at only two or three lessons; and under half that number completed a more specialised ‘preparatory module’ (for exampte, in display). These developments seem to be guided by the best of intentions and are still in an early developmental phase; the published material produced for the guidance of teachers is unfortunately marred by the curiosities of fashionable educational theorisirig in Britain, and is often too general to be useful (the reader with a taste for humour of this kind may wish to look at CPVE Assessment—Core Competence Statements with the exaggerated and vague requirements for these young, mostly non-academic, pupils to ‘recognise the impact of science/technology on society’, and to ‘suggest appropriate solutions to technical/scientific problems’).

(18) The nearest corresponding institutions in Britain are probably those ‘tertiary colleges’ offering both A-level courses and vocational qualifications such as BTEC National.

(19) Pupils on associated Bac courses—the G1 which specialises in business administration, and the G2 which specialises in business and finance—to some extent compete on the labour market with the G3 pupils mentioned above. It is therefore worth noticing that the number qualifying in these three specialisations in France in 1986 totalled some 51,000. The comparable scope in Britain is probably given by those passing BTEC National Certificates and Diplomas in Business Studies; the number passing totalled some 19,000 in that year.

(20) Under the revised arrangements for BTEC ‘First Courses’, the equivalent of two weeks of work experience is now also required for those taking full-time courses (compared with 12 weeks in France, as mentioned below).

(21) Based on work experience. A candidate working in a clothing retailer, for example, may be asked to advise on what can and cannot be altered on a coat, and take measurements for shortening a sleeve. From our recent case book: only one in a half dozen assistants in the clothing deparment of a leading department store in London's West End knew how to to measure for a sleeve alteration (and even that required four visits, because he was not yet in, got it wrong first-time, etc).

(22) Though it is not possible to survey the variety of the courses available in Britain, it deserves to be mentioned that the Pitman Diploma in Retailing and Distribution (level II) is closer to the French examinations in the scope of subjects covered and levels of competence demanded.

(23) For example, 2,168 passed out of an entry of 2,172 in 1986 in the City and Guilds course just mentioned.

(24) The account given here reflects the situation till the summer of 1986; since then there have been modifications as noted in section 5 below.

(25) Académie d'Orléans-Tours, CAP 1983, Vendeur: Travail sur Fiche Analytique de Produit, question 2a.

(26) Another example from our recent case book: modern fluorescent lamps are of the ‘quick start’ variety, and a shop assistant should be able to inform the customer who returns a lamp purchased there—because it turned out to be of the old-fashioned slow-starting (thunder and lightning) type—that it was of the older type containing cheaper circuitry; the assistant should not simply offer the customer a replacement subject to the same limitations (in fact, neither the assistant nor her immediate superior in this leading West End store—not the one in note 21—had any idea of the difference between the two types of lamps).

(27) The Pitman's Retailing and Distribution Course requires candidates to demonstrate familiarity with specific products through coursework assessed by their teachers, but it is not externally examined; an ability to describe verbally a chosen product in terms of colour, size and selling points is all that is usually demanded (see the notes given to centres offering Pitmans' courses in their handbook, Retailing and Distribution Course Assessment and Examination Regulations, January 1984, pp.15-16).

(28) CAP Vendeur: Connaissance de l'entreprise et documents commerciaux, Toulouse, 1986.

(29) BTEC General, Elements of Distribution (paper H200), June 1981.

(30) BTEC General, Business Calculations, October 1985. The paper for 1980—but not for 1985—included a question on compound interest. It appears that there has been a lowering of ‘expectations’ in relation to this group of candidates.

(31) Some of the larger retailing employers in London whom we interviewed have become sufficiently dissatisfied with shop assistants having only a CSE pass grade in mathematics that they now often look for an O-level or equivalent pass (the standard for the top third of school-leavers) recruiting shop assistants; the expected rapidly declining numbers of school-leavers from 1988 to 1993 may well make it more difficult for retailers to recruit youngsters of this calibre. Decreasing emphasis in the past generation on basic numerical skills in English school-mathematics syllabuses must carry a large part of the blame.

(32) CAP Vendeur: Calculs commerciaux, Strasbourg and Besançon, 1983 (Annales Vuibert, Paris, 1983, pp.70,122). The examination for Besançon seems a little harder than average, but serves to indicate the range of competence envisaged.

(33) The motor mechanics test includes, for example, questions on volumes of cylinders and on applications of Pythagoras (CAP Mécanicien Réparateur, Opt. A, B, D, Academie de Paris-Créteil-Versailles, 1986).

(34) CAP Vendeur: Expression Française, Caen, 1983 (Annales Vuibert, Paris 1984).

(35) BTEC, People and Communications, October 1983.

(36) As one French teacher of vocational subjects put it to us: ‘un véhicule par lequel on enseigne la culture générale’.

(37) Not one full day per week, but just one full day at some point in the whole ‘course’!

(38) This may simply require referring an aggrieved customer to a superior, if that is the employer's policy.

(39) ‘Moderation’ is educationalist jargon for steps to equalise different examiners' marking. In the present context it has not, to our knowledge, amounted to anything of substance in practice.

(40) Quoted from the sheet of Sample Items issued by City and Guilds; there is a curious (unnecessarily cautious?) warning attached to the sheet that they are not representative of the entire scope of the examinations in either content or difficulty'; no indication is given of where a more representative selection is to be found.

(41) The pass-mark is set at 64 per cent. This is not as high as it may seem since, with four alternative answers to each question, a candidate can achieve 25 per cent simply on the basis of random guessing. As noted above (note 23), almost all entrants pass.

(42) More fully: BEP Commerce: option aux employés des services de vente.

(43) Now revised and known as BEP Vente: Action marchande.

(44) It would take us too far from our main theme to consider why self-service initially advanced more rapidly in Britain than in France, and why France is now further ahead in the development of hypermarkets; a full study would need to refer, on the lines of the eminent French social historian Braudel, to the residual effects of walled cities in France on town-planning patterns (leading to living in apartment blocks with local shops, rather than the separation of residential and commercial areas required in Britain), and to the strength of associations of shopkeepers in France in restraining permission for the establishment of supermarkets. For a more detailed account of recent trends in retailing (though inadequately emphasising the changing costs of distribution in relation to manufacturing, as discussed in section 1 above) see N Alexander, Contemporary perspectives in retail development, Service Industries Journal, 1988, p.77.

(45) From tables 2 and 5 of Note d'Information, Ministre de I'Education nationale, 24 August 1987. That it seems to take a long time for French youngsters to find the right first job was suggested by a survey of 1981, unfortunately not repeated more recently. This compared unemployment amongst those completing CAP and BEP courses a year previously and five years previously. The older cohort showed no more than ‘frictional’ unemployment rates (5 per cent for men, 10 per cent for women), while the recent cohorts showed very high rates (21 and 45 per cent) partly because it takes time to find the ‘right job’, and partly because unemployment in general had risen in those five years (P Marchal and X Viney, Les premières années de vie active des jeunes sorties en 1975 des classes terminales de CAP et BEP, Formation Emploi, no.2, 1983).

(46) Note d'Information, Ministère de I'Education nationale, 28 May 1985.

(47) The greater competition in recent years on the youth labour market, with those of higher qualifications displacing those with lower qualifications, is a repeated theme of a series of articles in Formation Emploi, no.18, April 1987. The notion of déclassement (devaluation of qualifications?) has become almost an idée fixe with these writers, though neither its economic causes nor educational significance are adequately examined by them. It seems to come to this: education standards have risen throughout the ability-range; consequently persons with higher educational standards are today often doing jobs that yesterday were done by those with lower qualifications. On the whole, that should prove an advantage, varying from trade to trade. A summary of the French discussion, translated into English, has been provided by J F Germe, Employment policies and the entry of young people into the labour market in France, Brit. J. Ind. Relations, 1986, p.29.

(48) The definitions are not quite the same (under 20 hours a week in Britain, under 30 in France), but do not affect the substance of the comparison (Employment Gazette, October 1987, pp.12,17; and Enquête surl'Emploi 1987 Collections de I'INSEE, série D p.59). On recent British trends, see I Brodie, Distributive Trades, ch.3 of Technological Trends and Employment, vol.5, Commercial Service Industries (ed. A D Smith, Gower, 1986), pp.187-8; a comparison with France has been attempted by A Gregory, The growth of part-time work in grocery in Britain and France, Retail and Distributive Management, September 1987, p.18. Those who take a ‘Saturday only’ job in Britain are mostly youngsters, such as students, or those on a second job, and account for about a tenth of the total number of names on the payroll (a much smaller proportion, of course, of the full-time equivalent workforce; see Trinder, op. cit., p.24).

(49) Trinder (op. cit. p.25) draws particular attention to the advantages in taxation and national insurance contributions of employing part-time women for under nine hours a week. The tax-advantage is not of course the sole reason, but has made it easier for shops to respond to consumer demand for shopping outside hitherto ‘normal’ hours.

(50) I Brodie, op. cit., pp. 133,140; and Distributive Trades EDC, Technology and Training in the Distributive Trades (NEDO, 1987), especially the case studies on pp.84-87 which refer to very short retraining times. Other firms told us of 2-3 days' retraining for electronic cash registers.

(51) A comparison of recruitment into commercial occupations in 1976-78 with a period only four years later, 1980-82, showed a rise in the proportion of recruits with CAP, BEP or higher qualifications (niveaux II-IV) from 54 to 76 per cent (M-H Gensbittel and X Viney, Formation et accès aux emplois, Formation Emploi, April 1987, p.61).

(52) The German approach still supports a course of 2-3 years' length for adequate skill-training in this trade, and there is considerable debate whether two years are adequate and whether three years are advantageous. The three-year course (for Einzelhandelskaufmann) seems to provide more flexibility between trades than the two-year course (for Verkaufer). This was confirmed by a survey of those who had acquired these qualifications and subsequently were employed outside those occupations; 56 per cent of those following the longer course had found their training helpful in their present work, but only 24 per cent of those from the shorter course were of this view (Ausbildung und berufliche Eingliederung, Haupterherbung 1984-85, table 4.414b, Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, Bonn, 1987; and H Herg et al, Berufsaufbildung abgeschlossen—was dann? BibB, 1987, pp.119-127). The discussion of these issues in Germany is explicit and helpful; see G Kutscha and H Schanz (eds) Berufsbildung in Einzelhandel, esp. the paper by P Schenkel (Holland and Josenhans: Stuttgart,1988), p.49 etseq., and the series of papers (which appeared after the article on German vocational training in National Institute Economic Review, August 1983) for a conference on retail training, Einzelhandelstag 1982 (Bundesverband der Lehrer an Wirtschaftschulen, Berlin), esp. pp.13,37.

(53) German Federal Ministry of Education, Berufsbildungsbericht 1987, p.191; we have consulted trade unions and employers on the present position.

(54) This is not to say that there are no problems of occupational imbalances in training in Germany (the excess numbers trained in baking are well-known); but the problems are localised and much smaller than in France.

(55) These figures relate to CAPs in all trades in 1983 (N Coeffic, Les jeunes a la sortie de l'école, Formation Emploi, April 1987, p.15). For commercial occupations, the published information is not so recent, but shows the same contrast: of females who had been on CAP courses in Commerce, 38 per cent of those completing an apprenticeship in June 1978 were unemployed nine months later, and 58 per cent of those completing their full-time school courses in June 1980 were unemployed nine months later (these figures do not seem altogether consistent with 55 per cent unemployed amongst those following both routes combined in 1979, as shown in the same source, CEREQ Dossier 22, op. cit., pp. 140,153,163). The sampling methods for these surveys are not described in these sources and, verb.sap., they merely refer to la faiblesse de l'echantillon (see, for example, Coeffic, op. cit. p.19); it is not inconceivable that response rates amongst the unemployed were higher.

(56) The Future of Vocational Education and Training (OECD, Paris, 1983), p.56.

(57) So we were assured by retailing employers in Germany. See also Einzelhandelstag, op. cit. A fuller study of French youth unemployment seems to be required, extending beyond retailing, which takes into account the levels of trainee allowances, how they relate to unemploy ment benefits, and the initial wages of those who have completed their training. Regretfully this has not proved possible within the confines of the present research project.

(58) Until 1987 most young people having attained their BEP and wishing to take a higher level qualification would have been required to re-enter the mainstream educational system, joining pupils who are about two years younger, and study for a Bac Technologique G3 (Techniques Commerciales). Since 1987 teenagers having specialised in distribution subjects have had the option of studying for the newly-created Bac Professionnel: Vente Représentation, intended primarily for industrial representatives. This vocational Baccalauréat offers those who have formerly experienced difficulties in the traditional more ‘academic’ education the chance to gain a Baccalauréat qualification, and to study with pupils closer to their own age and schooling background.

(59) See Gensbittel and Viney, op. cit., p.48, esp.n.4. The demographic decline in school-leavers in France in the next five years may also lead to changes in recruitment patterns as expected in Britain (see p.17 above, fn.2).

(60) The opinions of large retailing employers in 1986 were that ‘it is difficult to use all of the existing first year in some cases’ on training, and ‘it is not clear that a two-year course on the present basis is a good idea’ (Trinder, op. cit., p.36).

(61) CAP, BEP, and Bac.

(62) It was originally hoped that the NCVQ would complete its work on retailing by April 1987 (Distributive Trades EDC, op. cit., 1986, p.32); on the industry's lack of clarity as to its needs, see also the HMI report, Education and Training at Sainsbury's (DES, 1987, esp. p.10).

(63) City and Guilds (Certificate no. 6760), The Retail Certificate: Levels I and II, Assessment Document (City and Guilds, 1989).

(64) The Training Information Base for the Industry Agreed Training Provision, MSC, National Association of Colleges for Distributive Education and Training, and National Retail Training Council, December 1986; and Financial Times, 11 April 1988. The Royal Society of Arts new vocational certificates are organised on the same principles.

(65) Most young people ought to complete the ‘competences’ for the award of the proposed retailing NVQ Level 1 in less than three months—so we were assured by retailing experts in Britain and France.

(66) Training for Skills: Qualifications in YTS (MSC, 1987).

(67) The Secretary of State for Education, Mr Kenneth Baker, very recently called for agreed ‘core skills’—written and oral communications, numeracy, etc—to become an essential part of all vocational qualifications (in his speech on Further Education, 15 February 1989, para. 42); but, in contrast to what we have seen of the French system, he does not want them as separate courses ('bolt-on extras', is his phrase!). Thus the difference from the Continental system is likely to remain, supported by the highest political authority in the land.