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Vocational Training in France and Britain: Office Work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Hilary Steedman
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Abstract

Better pre-planning of work is a familiar requirement for improved productive efficiency; this has manifested itself for some decades in a tendency for an increasing proportion of the workforce to be transferred from physical production on the factory floor to ‘paper work’ in offices—that is, to administrative and clerical activities. That tendency has been offset, especially in the past decade, by advances in data processing machinery allowing clerical activities to be performed very much more quickly and by fewer staff. The total number of employees required for administrative and clerical tasks has fluctuated according to the relative strength of these tendencies. The required quality, or technical capabilities, of such staff has also fluctuated: for 100 years or more, clerical and office staff were usually required to follow formal procedures on direct instructions from a superior; much work was of a purely routine and repetitive nature. The first phase of automation using mainframe computers and central processing facilities did little to alter this situation, and may even have led to further fragmentation and simplification of tasks.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 120 , May 1987 , pp. 58 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

This article presents the second of a series of comparisons of vocational training for selected occupations in France and Britain; it follows an earlier study comparing training for the building trades in the two countries (National Institute Economic Review, no. 116, May 1986). It draws attention to the importance of full-time commercial secondary schools in France, and their role in training office personnel to handle the broader range of tasks required by modern office equipment.

References

Notes

(1) See table 2, note on sources, for the occupations included in this category in both countries.

(2) In both Britain and France an insurance company, a bank and a paper manufacturer were visited. For each personnel manager interviewed, discussion covered the following points: number and grades of clerical and secretarial employees; main qualifications looked for on recruitment to each grade; proportions holding such qualifications; qualifications of recent recruits; relevance of such qualifications to employers' needs and to changing work organisation resulting from new technology.

(3) H. Steedman, ‘Clerical and commercial sector qualifications in the United Kingdom, France and Germany’ CEDEFOP, Berlin, 1986. In this study, three personnel managers of large employers of office staff were interviewed in each of the three countries concerned. In addition, discussions were held with teachers, careers advisers and trades-unionists in all three countries. Main points covered in discussion were (a) future projected demand for employees with various types of clerical qualification and (b) the extent to which existing qualifications would need to be revised in the light of new office technology.

(4) The French contribution to this project consisted of a collection of six case studies of response to changes in office technology in six major companies in the financial services sector (C. Gillot and C. Lange, ‘Technological change, qualifications and professionalisation in the tertiary sector: synthesis document based on observations in six companies’, mimeo, CEDEFOP, Pans, 1985).

(5) Very many different qualifications are available in clerical and commercial fields in Britain. The precise number of bodies making awards in this field is not known. In this study, the fotar most widely known bodies have been considered. These are: BTEC (Business and Technician Education Council), LCCI (London Chambers of Commerce and industry), RSA (Royal Society of Arts) and Pitmans institute. BTEC offers only group awards; that is, an award is made only if the student passes in a specified number of related subjects. BTEC awards the National certificate, taken after two years of part-time study, and a National diploma, taken after two years of full-time study: both require entrants to be of O-level standard. in addition until recently, BTEC awarded a General certificate—one year part-time—and a General diploma—one year full-time—which have no entrance requirements and which used to lead on to the riational awards. In September 1986 the General level award was discontinued and replaced by a ‘first award’. The other awarding bodies offer both single-subject examinations and group awards which roughly correspond to the old BTEC General and current National levels. Although some of the above-mentioned bodies operate throughout the United Kingdom, others, for example BTEC, operate only in England, Wales and in Northern Ireland. There is not sufficient scope in this article to spell out the different arrangements for different parts of the UK. The description of vocational qualifications therefore covers England and Wales only. For the sake of brevity, England is used in the text to denote England and Wales except where otherwise stated.

(6) Taken from CAP examination (employé de bureau), Connaissance de l'entreprise, Académie de Nantes, 1985, question 1; and CSE office practice with typewriting, paper I, London Regional Examining Board, June 1985, question 14. A similar question set at RSA stage I, office practice, part II, May 1985, question 19(b), did not require any calculations at all.

(7) For example, the candidate for the CAP employé de bureau examination is required to write at dictation a from the philosopher Alain and to answer the following questions on a text of the 19th century author Alexandre Dumas fils: 1. Explain the meaning of the following expressions in the text “la souveraineté de l'argent” (the supreme power of money), “l'un court après quinze sous, i'auire après cent mille francs” (one man is after a few pence, another is chasing a hundred thousand francs). 2. State the stylistic device used in the passage in italics. 3. How, according to the author, does one move from being “laid, bête, importun” (ugly, stupid, and a nuisance) to being “beau, spirituel, aimable” (handsome, witty and likeable) thanks to money? Does the author really think this has happened to him? Give reasons for your answer. 4. Personal comment: For you, does money have the same importance as for the here of the passage? Support your views with concrete examples', It is to be hoped that the newly-appointed Kingman committee into the teaching of English will examine with due care the language syllabuses in the schools of our major competitors in Europe. Examples taken from: BEC General award papers A500, A520, A070, February and June 1983; CAP, employé de bureau, Académie de Nantes, 1985; Annales des CAP Commerciaux: Mathématiques et Français, Vuibert, Paris, 1982.

(8) Considerable effort has recently been devoted to revising and rethinking the qualification available at CAP and BEP level. A new and broader CAP (employé des services administratifs et commerciaux) was created in 1986 designed to replace the old CAP (sténodactylographe). New and broader BEP courses are also currently being introduced to replace the existing more narrow secretarial qualification. The French method of updating content and leaving titles and levels of qualification unchanged while encouraging students at the lowest level (CAP) to aim for the next level of qualification (BEP) contrasts sharply with the strategy adopted in Britain by BTEC. BTEC have recefitly discontinued their General level qualification and replaced it by an entirety new First certificate. This can only add to the confusion of employers and must be deeply discouraging to those students who have worked hard to obtain General level in the past.

(9) At National level all BTEC option modules are and examined by the centres which teach them (usually further education or technical colleges). In contrast to the French Bac G, there are no centrally set and marked papers for secretarial skills. We are grateful to Bromley College of Technology for supplying the papers used in this comparison. The fact that there are no centrally set papers at BTEC National level even for core subjects which must be taken by all students means that our comparisons based upon papers from one college should be treated with caution. Comparisons of the now discontinued BTEC General level papers with CAP were based on centrally set papers and are therefore more reliable. BTEC has recently decided to discontinue the practice of centrally set papers for the new First certificate. Other comparisons are based upon: RSA, Communication skills in business, stage II, June 1981; Epreuves professiorwelles, gestion de l'entreprise Bac G1-G2-G3, sujets et corrigés, Bordas, Paris, 1980.

(10) There is also a CNAA-validated B.A. degree in secretarial studies offered by two institutions in Britain; only 134 students obtained a degree in 1985 in both commerce and secretarial studies.

(11) Process Plant EDC, ‘Overseas marketing by the UK process plant industry—recommendations for future action’, NEDO, February 1982.

(12) ‘Foreign languages in the school curriculum: a draft statement of policy’, DES, June 1986.

(13) Ministére de l'Education Nationale, Note d'Information, no.85-45, ‘L'enseignement des langues vivantes dans les établissements publics et privés du second degré en 1984-85’; Department of Education and Science, Statistics of School Leavers, 1984.

(14) It should be emphasised here that an O-level pass in any language is not in itself adequate preparation for using the language in a commercial environment. However, O-level can provide a useful starting point for more specialised commer cial language development during the period of vocational education. Language options are available at BTEC National level: but in 1983, a mere 79 students completed a BTEC German language module. Only 65 students passed RSA examinations in German. It would be useful to know how many BTEC national business and finance students had gained an O-level foreign language pass before entering their BTEC course, and why so few students take languages at national level. The 1985 Review of BTEC National Awards in Business and Related Studies did not concern itself with language learning, and did not appear to recognise it as a matter for serious worry.

(15) The DES draft statement in 1986 on foreign languages in the school curriculum contained no more than the familiar exhortation to local education authorities to expand numbers taking languages in secondary schools and to offer a first foreign language other than French. In France and Germany foreign language learning forms part of the obligatory curriculum of core subjects taken by all pupils. A recent (1987) HMI report, ‘Modern foreign languages to 16’, appears to support the view that positive steps need to be taken to specify a core curriculum, which would include a modern foreign language. Possibly some of the new city technology colleges may see their way to providing a substantial element of business and commercial studies within the curriculum including greater provision for the study of modern foreign languages.

(16) The different ways in which vocational skills are validated in Britain and France create difficulties for comparison. In France, the vast majority trained in office skills receive a group award (CAP or BEP) validated by the Ministry of Education. These are the only French awards considered in table 1. Many other private colleges in France also award their own certificates for individual subjects, for example typing, and many adults take office skills courses either as part of their employers' training programme or under the auspices of A.F.P.A. (Association pour la Formation Professionnelle des Adultes). If an estimate of these other awards gained in France were to be made, it might raise the figure given in table 1 for CAP/BEP type awards by 12,000—15,000. In Britain, at present, the majority of those receiving training in office skills take single-subject certificates, some awarded by the main recognised bodies, others awarded by colleges and other institutions. Statistics at present published by the main bodies, such as RSA, give only numbers of passes in individual subjects. It is not possible to calculate from these figures individuals passing a group of subjects at a given level. However, rough estimates indicate that these would probably not exceed the 12,000—15,000 omitted from the French totals. For the sake of clarity therefore, and while acknowledging the achievements of those with single-subject passes in both countries, table 1 is restricted to showing those recorded as having obtained group vocational awards in both countries.

(17) These figures are taken from a special tabulation kindly prepared for us by the Department of Education and Science (the DES of course is not to be considered as having taken a view on the ‘equivalences’ of the French qualifications posited here). These figures relate only to O-level and CSE passes obtained by pupils in schools in England (excluding Wales). No data are at present collected showing the number of students gaining O-level and other passes at colleges of further education. It seems likely that such statistics, if they were to be compiled, would add to the number in Britain obtaining a level of qualification similar to that of the French CAP/BEP.

(18) Stephen Bevan, Secretaries and Typists: The Impact of Office Automation, Institute of Manpower Studies, 1984; these findings were based upon case studies of eight major UK employers.

(19) Op. cit., pp.111-15.

(20) This finding also emerged in the Gillot/Lange study, op. cit., and in the CEDEFOP (1986) study pp.29-30.

(21) The view that French employers are recruiting at a higher level because of changing work responsibilities and not just ‘trading up’ (because of the increased availablility of those with high qualifications) is also taken by F. Bruand ‘Les jeunes débutantes dans les emplois de secrétariat’, Formation-Emploi, no.9, 1985. Bruand shows a change in employers' recruitment preferences during 1976-80 in favour of the more highly qualified candidates—yet the level of supply of highly qualified candidates (Bac and above) was very similar in 1976 and 1980.

(22) Some 30 per cent of those leaving with the Bac G were unemployed and 10 per cent of those with the BTS (Francoise Bruand et. al., ‘L'entrée dans la vie active des jeunes issus des formations tertiaires de bureau’ Bulletin de recherches sur l'emploi et la formation, no. 11, Nov/Dec 1984, CEREQ.