Underused because it is little known, difficult to harness and complex in terms of funding, the validation of prior learning (validation des acquis de l’expérience, VAE), which enables people to obtain a qualification for experience they have acquired, is yet to gain a real foothold after 23 years of existence and a major reform in 2022. On 22 July 2025, France's labour and education ministers convened the first strategic committee to outline recent improvements to the scheme.
For more than 20 years, it has been possible in France to obtain a qualification or diploma, without any formal training, through the recognition of professional and personal experience or the validation of prior learning (VAE). However, this route to qualification remains very infrequently used, with around 20,000 graduates per year since its creation in 2002. In order to remove the remaining obstacles to its development, Élisabeth Borne, minister of national education and higher education, an
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