Meeting Monday evening with the social partners, Jean Castex and Elisabeth Borne "told them that the level of support for apprenticeship contracts will not drop at the start of the 2021 school year" in order to "maintain the good dynamics of learning" during the crisis. But the question remains open for the following years because the financial balance of the system "remains a goal", underlines the ministry.
Following the 2018 apprenticeship reform, the funding of CFAs was transferred from the regions to the professional branches and since this year has been based on taking charge of each apprenticeship contract: each time a young person signs a contract, the center receives a sum - called "contract cost" - supposed to cover its educational costs, according to a national scale per diploma established by France Compétences, the body in charge of financing work-study programs and vocational training.
France Compétences has thus validated more than 20.000 training costs, often offered by the branches (5.000 euros for a mason's CAP, 8.000 euros for an engineer from the Saint-Etienne School of Mines, etc.). But expenses have skyrocketed because apprenticeship reached a record level in 2019 (+ 16% of contracts) which should be maintained, or even exceeded in 2020 thanks to hiring bonuses (5.000 euros for a minor apprentice, 8.000 euros for a major) decided this summer.
At the same time, resources have diminished due to the crisis - the training contribution of employers being based on the payroll - which has contributed to the deterioration of the situation of France Compétences. The latter was consequently allocated an allocation of 750 million euros to balance its budget in 2021.
To structurally restore the balance, an Igas-IGF report had proposed this summer to reduce the level of these "contract costs" from 2021, which worried the CFA.
"However, taking into account the operational constraints and the considerable additional costs which the crisis has imposed on the CFA, the government has decided (...) to wait for the reporting of analytical accounts to begin the financial year more gradually. , it will be for the board of directors of France Compétences to determine the precise modalities and the timetable for the convergence ", explains the ministry in its press release.