La Plateforme in Marseille
A new free training school on digital technologies
La Plateforme is a new digital school that trains students in digital technologies for free. The Coding School is a 2-year training course leading to certification. It enables 150 students with various profiles to become web developers.
Innovative digital training: between educational excellence and inclusion
The project is part of La Plateforme's mission, which combines educational excellence and inclusion in order to provide free digital training. The Platform is the result of a twofold observation: in the digital sector, the job market is very tight and traditional academic courses don’t fit many profiles. 100,000 jobs in digital have been left unfilled in 2021. That is the reason why the challenge of this project is twofold. Firstly, it has a social goal, as it successfully trains students to enter the job market. Secondly, its economical part consists in giving companies the opportunity to hire people with the digital skills they are lacking.
1/3 of the students are from underprivileged neighbourhoods. For some young people, a computer science school may be out of reach, either because of financial cost (tuition fees are often around 10,000 euros) or because of academic record (having the bac and a very good academic level). The Coding School is training in web coding, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity students who have studied three in higher education. The Coding School also helps with career change.
Developing the students’ soft skills
The objective is for all the students in the class to develop the skills and actions that will make them able to find a company where they can work for their work experience in second year. The school also offers students from underprivileged areas a future in this field.
150 students in the school year 2021/2022
80% of students with a company for their work training program by the end of July 2022
Accompanying the students through different activities
The project will run from November 2021 to July 2022. It consists in the design and implementation of support activities for the school's students (workshops, individual follow-up, support, etc.). The methodology follows a classic project process in three main steps: design of workshops and actions in the launching phase, animation of workshops and follow-up actions for the pupils, and individualised follow-up and coaching according to the needs. Every student attends one group workshop per week and has individual coaching appointments according to his or her needs.
Every week, the group workshop covers a different theme such as designing and communicating one's professional project, designing and formalising an effective resume, communicating effectively on LinkedIn, creating a portfolio, designing and implementing a company search, succeeding in a job interview, individual coaching appointments…
What the Air Liquide Foundation is doing
The Air Liquide Foundation participates in the financing of the internal resources (pedagogical teams) and external resources (consultant) which are essential to carry out the project.
“I note that the current school system is designed for some children’s profiles, while it totally excludes the others. Worse, it can create suffering and lose self-confidence because of its methods, and take away the appetite for learning and effort. When I discovered the learning methods of La Plateforme, I thought: at last !”.
Rosalba Bologna Rabilloud, Communication manager, ALFI