A €15 billion investment plan to fund training courses for up to 2 million people has been announced by the French Government. The Plan Investissement Compétences (PIC) will run until 2022.
Already in force during the last quarter of 2018, this huge investment plan offers training programmes to people who encounter difficulties on the French employment market and is also designed to facilitate better social inclusion.
Aiming to improve basic skills of both young people with no diploma or professional qualifications or living in big cities suburbs, and job seekers and handicapped persons, PIC represents a massive effort to tackle issue of training in France.
The PIC initiative has already led to the creation of 70 000 available training courses in the Paris Region [in French]. ECDL (PCIE) is listed as one of the most relevant certifications to improve basic computing skills on the target population. Other computer skills training fully funded by the PIC, in which an acknowledged certification such as ECDL (PCIE) is required, are currently being launched in other major areas in France, for example in the Rhône-Alpes region [in French].
