Making lifelong learning accessible to all: Individual Learning Accounts

In an OpEd for Brussels think tank Friends of Europe, ETF Director Cesare Onestini makes a call to ‘’support integrated, inclusive, quality #lifelonglearning systems to guarantee people the best possible start in life. Such policies will need to create an environment conducive to further learning, upskilling and reskilling’’. This should be ‘’the top priority for the decade to come’’ says Onestini, emphasizing that ‘lifelong learning is a shared vision’. The challenge now is implementation. The ETF Director calls for using the potential of technology to ‘’empower individuals, schools and communities to make the best choices for the future’’.

One way to make lifelong learning accessible to individuals is through Individual Learning Accounts,  virtual or physical bank accounts with which an individual can pay for education and training. Individual learning accounts are not new. They were originally introduced to stimulate individual choice and responsibility for lifelong learning. There is renewed interest because they make training rights ‘’portable’’ from one job or employment status to another. Very useful in the dynamic labour market of today. Nicolas Schmit, EC commissioner for jobs and social rights has been commissioned to explore whether the idea of individual learning accounts can help adults with Lifelong Learning.

Although still far from common practice, some countries have implemented a form of individual learning accounts. The French Compte Personnel de Formation (CPF) in particular is interesting to look at. It is so far the only individual learning scheme in Europe that has been operational for some years and has recently been significantly reformed.

OECD looked at experiences and published findings in a report ‘Individual Learning Accounts: Panacea or Pandora’s Box?’ (2019). The report is rich in information from case studies in France, Austria, USA, Italy, Scotland and Singapore and presents policy recommendations for the implementation of effective individual learning accounts. The first recommendation is: keep it simple!

Keeping it simple is a main lesson from the first phase of the French CPF system (2015-2018). Complex financing arrangements and fragmented governance, in particular the division of responsibilities for implementation, administration and delivery among too many actors, made it difficult for individuals to navigate and use the scheme. The reformed French CPF aims to simplify both governance and processes, and to make the information system much more user-friendly through the app Mon Compte Formation (my training account). The CPF gives now complete autonomy to the learner.

Are individual learning accounts accessible to all? No. Statistics show that young, well-educated people take up a disproportionate share of lifelong learning opportunities and the same applies to individual learning accounts. Highly skilled individuals tend to be over-represented according to the OECD study. In France, where all individuals in work or looking for work are eligible for the CPF, before the reform the least skilled participated less. One recommendation to make such schemes more inclusive is to target them to the lower educated, for example through progressive financial support to income groups. This happens in some countries and it helps but more is needed to promote participation of under-represented groups in education and training. Individual learning accounts should be accompanied by parallel supporting services that provide information, advice and guidance on a small-scale level, is another of the OECD recommendations.

In fact, each individual, to be able to make informed choices about which training to invest in, needs to have access to relevant and up-to-date information on the quality of different training providers and programmes. Individuals should not only look at certification and quality labels, but could benefit from more in-depth information on evaluations, learning outcomes and user satisfaction.

How can technology empower individuals to make the best choices for their future? The new French CPF app will allow participants to rate their training programme and provider, just like you rate your Uber driver, and this information will be published on the information system.  

French Minister of Labour Muriel Pénicaud, in an interview with the French regional press last week, talks about the first experiences with the Mon Compte Formation app. It is most encouraging, she says. Each employee or unemployed person, that is 25 million people, now has a real, funded training right, without having to ask for authorization. With the app and your Social Security number, you have access to the whole offer. The app, launched on November 21, has been downloaded 750,000 times and more than 50,000 people have already submitted accepted training packages.