The federal State initiates various measures aimed at improving the quality of the labour force, some of which facilitate access to training, and in particular the paid educational leave scheme, which is a system of individual training leave. The federal State also has competence for matters relating to labour law and social security: for example, one scheme gives employers the right to a reduction in social security contributions if they recruit young job-seekers who combine work and vocational training.

Distance learning, adult education, and part-time arts education fall within the competence of the French Community. The government of the French Community is also responsible for general policy on continuing education for adults: under certain conditions, it allocates operating grants for activities to continuing education providers and subsidies for permanent staff positions. The French Community also holds legislative power in the following areas: conditions of apprenticeship access, course organisation, continuous assessment and examinations, minimum requirements with which apprenticeship programmes must comply, and the award and statutory recognition of achievement certificates. Certification with associated legal entitlements (granting access to a regulated profession or to a subsidised job; equivalence with other diplomas; determining a given level on a salary scale for civil servants; or conferring a right to redundancy pay or unemployment benefits) is restricted to those bodies that comply with the accreditation procedures stipulated by the Ministry.

Finally, competence for training has been entrusted to the Regions: the development of vocational training is intended to give everybody, and in particular the most underprivileged, access to employment, and to allow workers to adapt or to improve their professional qualifications. In this perspective, the regions take measures to support training (for example, the training-cheques system. It should be noted that the ‘Training-Cheques’ allows employers to receive financial assistance to train their employees at one of the approved training centres. Worth €30, it corresponds to one hour of training per employee. There are also other types of training-cheques : the ‘language training-cheque’ for language learning and the ‘eco-climate training-cheque’ for environmental training), and they contribute to the development of dual vocational education and training and to various training/integration initiatives for the benefit of low-skilled groups. The Walloon Region also has responsibility for vocational training of personnel working in the agriculture sector. Furthermore, various initiatives aim to facilitate access to information and communication technologies (for example the Walloon Region’s Mobilisation Plan for Information and Communication Technologies) or languages (for example cheques issued in Brussels for language training or ICT training when an employee is hired). In the Brussels-Capital Region, the administration of the French Community Commission (Cocof) is responsible for the approval and funding of socio-occupational integration scheme operators and local missions which serve as partners to Bruxelles Formation in the socio-occupational integration scheme.

In each of the Regions, there is an organisation with responsibility for implementing training policies: these are the Walloon Office for Vocational Training and Employment (known as Forem), and Bruxelles Formation, created by the decree of the French Community Commission of 17 March 1994. On 12 November 2021, a Walloon decree on coaching and solutions-oriented support for job seekers provided a legal framework for the ‘integration pathway’. As part of coaching and solutions-oriented support, Forem coordinates services implemented by itself or by support partners or third parties, as soon as the job seeker registers. The aim is to mobilise job seekers as part of their professional integration pathway, with targeted actions (based on their profile, aspirations, needs analysis and degree of autonomy in their job search) and, on the other hand, in terms of the use of digital channels, their proximity to the labour market, the socio-economic environment in which they live and the realities of the labour market, with a view to their sustainable integration into the labour market. Securing training pathways and developing bridges are also one challenges facing policy-makers in Brussels.

The non-profit French-Speaking Institute for Continuing Education for the Independent Professions and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (IFAPME) used to provide training for adults and teenagers wishing to learn or improve themselves in a profession with a view to self-employement or as qualified workers in a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME). In 2003, IFPME was split into two entities, one covering the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region (the sfpme – Small and Medium-Sized Companies Training Service of the French Community Commission, responsible for supervising the non-profit organisation efp – Training Centre for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises), and the other that of the Walloon Region, IFAPME – the Walloon Institute of Dual Vocational Education and Training for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises.

The missions historically carried out by the IFPME have been maintained and continued by these two entities, which are part of the same dual vocational training programme, organised in particular through a cooperation agreement aimed at ensuring consistency in training pathways and mobility for learners between regions.

The French Community has powers with regard to several other categories of training.

Adult education caters to adults, and represents part of an overall approach of lifelong learning. The French Community decree of 16 April 1991 which organises this form of education describes its main purposes in Article 7. An amendment introduced in 2008 relates to the integration of adult education in the European Area, while another one in 2009 aims to boost the provision of literacy training in adult education institutions for the benefit of ‘under-schooled’ groups.

Distance learning is organised by the decree of 13 July 2016, and part-time secondary arts education (ESAHR) by the decree of 2 June 1998.

The decree on the development of further education in the field of associative life (17th July 2003) sets out the conditions for the granting of recognition and subsidies to providers of further education for adults.