On this page

1. Acquiring cultural and creative competences through education and training

2. Specialised training for professionals in the education, culture and youth fields

3. Providing quality access to creative environments

---

Acquiring cultural and creative competences through education and training

 

Formal education

Formal education plays a prominent role in the acquisition of artistic and creative competences as well as cultural knowledge (history of art), particularly through artistic teaching content on the core curriculum up to lower secondary school level, which forms part of the broader programme of artistic and cultural education, implemented by National Education together with the Ministry of Culture.

This policy is enshrined in the Guidance and Planning Law of 8 July 2013 for restructuring French schools, which provides that artistic and cultural education in schools comprise "a learning path for all schoolchildren throughout their schooling", which is "implemented at local level" and in which "cultural and artistic stakeholders along with associations can [...] be involved".The importance of artistic and cultural education has been firmly established with the plan for "Arts and Culture in Schools (plan À l’école des arts et de la culture).

The learning outcomes of artistic and cultural education are to:

• Enable all schoolchildren to forge a rich and coherent personal culture throughout their schooling;
• Develop and increase their artistic practice;
• Enable encounters with artists and artworks and attendance of cultural venues.

This programme entails creating a PEAC - artistic and cultural learning path (Parcours d'éducation artistique et culturelle) for primary and secondary schoolchildren (see 8.3 National strategy on creativity and culture for young people). The point is to create complementary links between their different educational moments: while at school, at after-school or holiday club and during extracurricular activities. Three pillars underpin the learning path:

1. Artistic learning (part of the core curriculum up to lower secondary school level); musical education, visual and plastic arts (primary).
2. Encounters with artists and artworks through partnerships.
3. Artistic practices which may be hosted in establishments and be built on outside the establishment.
4. Monitoring of the child's artistic and cultural learning path via a digital platform: FOLIOS which enables formal documentation of learning paths, from primary school through to upper secondary schools (lycées). Schoolchildren have a personal online section on this platform, which teachers can access to update throughout their learning paths.

Other actions forming part of artistic and cultural education also foster the acquisition of creative and cultural competences. These include:

• The culture correspondent (Référent culture)

A culture referent is appointed in each public and publicly funded collège and lycée. This person contributes to the cultural strand of the school project, informs the school community about local cultural offers, helps develop projects during and outside school time, facilitates partnerships with cultural institutions and local authorities, and promotes particularly innovative initiatives.

• Partnership between the CNC - National Cinema Centre (Centre national du cinéma) and National Education Ministry

The partnership between the CNC and the education system also remains a key instrument for building cultural competences through film education. The national scheme now known as "My class at the cinema" (Ma classe au cinéma) includes "Primary school and the movies" (Ecole et cinéma), "Lower secondary school at the cinema" (Collège au cinéma) and "Hight school pupils and apprentices at the cinema" (Lycéens et apprentis au cinéma).

According to the CNC, it enables nearly 2 million pupils and apprentices each year to discover cinema in theatres and take part in class-based educational work. The upper-secondary strand also covers general and vocational high schools.

• History of art lessons

History of art lessons are taught to all school children from primary school right through to upper secondary school level. They give the children insight into artworks from different artistic movements, periods and civilisations and, through a multidisciplinary approach, can be taught by all willing teachers in the form of shared projects. At lower secondary school, these lessons are delivered by history-geography, plastic arts, litteracy and music teachers. Pupils also have digital resources to hand for rounding off or advancing their knowledge of history of art. Examples of such websites are:

• Ministry of Culture’s Arts History Portal
• Centre for National Monuments (Centre des monuments nationaux)'s official website 
• Ministry of Education's ÉduNum booklet on history of the arts.

 

• Sociocultural education in agricultural schools 

In agricultural education, socio-cultural education (éducation socio-culturelle) remains a specific and integrated component of the curriculum. It is built into all technological and vocational training programmes and is organised around three strands: social and cultural environment, artistic education, and social dynamics and human communication. Its artistic dimension aims to develop sensitivity, judgement and creativity through art and communication, while also encouraging social awareness and the ability to take part in collective projects.

• Higher education

At higher-education level, the Ministry of Culture currently counts 99 establishments, awarding more than 40 national diplomas and educating around 37,000 students. This confirms the continued importance of the cultural higher-education sector in France, especially in the fields of heritage, visual arts, architecture, live performance, cinema and audiovisual studies.

• Specialized higher education

A particularly important recent development is the consolidation of the National institute for higher studies on artistic education (Institut national supérieur de l’éducation artistique - INSEAC) of the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (Conservatoire national des arts et métiers - CNAM). The institute is a public higher-education establishment dedicated to initial training, continuing training, research and professional certification in artistic and cultural education (EAC, see 8.3 National strategy on creativity and culture for young people). 

Its current offer includes degree programmes, distance learning, continuing education and doctoral pathways, and it works through a broad network of cultural, educational and territorial partners. The 2025–2026 national training programme also includes EAC-related themes such as scientific culture, theatre, memory, youth literature and the PRÉAC network.

 

Non-formal education

Outside the formal school system, associations, cultural institutions and local authorities continue to develop their own artistic and creative training activities. This field is still based largely on partnership and local initiative, but it is now more clearly structured than before through national tools such as the 100% EAC label, the PRÉAC network and territorial education schemes. 

The 100% EAC label, launched in 2021, recognises territories that aim to give all young people access to artistic and cultural education (EAC) from early childhood to university, and it is awarded for five years by the prefect and rector after joint assessment by the regional education and culture authorities.

 

 

Specialised training for professionals in the education, culture and youth fields

 

Teachers

Training for teachers of “Plastic Arts” and “Choir Singing and Music Education” is regulated by the French Ministry of National Education. As part of their professional training and preparation for the Postgraduate Certificate in Secondary Teaching (Certificat d’Aptitude au Professorat de l’Enseignement du Second degré - CAPES), with a specialisation in either “Plastic Arts” or “Choir Singing and Music Education”, candidates are required to acquire both practical and theoretical knowledge. The organisation of the training and certification process is defined by legislation:

1. Order of 19 April 2013 laying down the procedures for organising the competitive examinations for the Certificate of Teaching Competence for Secondary Education;
2. Order of 30 March 2017 amending the Order of 19 April 2013 laying down the procedures for organising the competitive examinations for the Certificate of Aptitude for Secondary School Teaching.

• Plastic arts

The learning outcomes of the plastic arts teacher training certificate (occupation) are to:

• Become well-versed in the history of artistic movements and techniques;
• Harness artistic culture and knowledge of plastic art;
• Situate and compare works of different kinds, from diverse periods, cultural and geographic areas;
• Analyse and explain changing practices in the plastic art sphere.

In addition, the examination for the certificate includes an artistic test aimed at "testing the candidate's artistic commitment, […] inventiveness and creativeness […] and know-how in terms of expression with plastic means".

• Choir singing and music education

The CAPES - postgraduate certificate in secondary teaching, "Choir singing and music education" specialism has similar learning outcomes to the plastic arts specialism. The candidate must become well-versed in musical culture and technique and be able to pass musical knowledge on to students as well as develop a musical project.

 

Digital resources

Teachers of visual arts, history of the arts and music continue to have access to a wide range of official teaching resources through Eduscol, the Ministry of Education’s pedagogical platform. Eduscol provides curricula, teaching guidance, classroom resources and thematic materials for artistic and cultural education (EAC). The current official presentation of EAC also recalls that every pupil, from nursery school to the end of upper secondary school, should each year learn, encounter and practise culture in all its forms.

A major development is the role of ADAGE (Application dédiée à la généralisation de l’éducation artistique et culturelle), which now acts as a national and territorial management tool for EAC. It allows teachers and schools to design projects, request funding, consult a resource base, access partner mapping and cultural contacts, and browse the catalogue of collective pass Culture offers. In other words, it is no longer just a repository of resources, but a practical platform for organising EAC projects and partnerships.

 

The resource centres for artistic and cultural education (Pôles de ressources pour l’éducation artistique et culturelle - PRÉAC)

Created by circular no. 2007-090 of 12 April 2007, PRÉAC are online training centres for the education and culture sectors. These structures are the main intercategory training network for artistic and cultural education. They provide continuing training for actors from education, culture, youth and higher education, and are jointly steered by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture. National coordination is now carried out by the National Higher Institute for Artistic and Cultural Education (INSEAC) of the Cnam, and each PRÉAC is organised through a steering committee bringing together the DAAC, the EAFC, the DRAC and one or more cultural structures.

The current 2025–2026 national catalogue instead lists 18 national PRÉAC training sessions, and the INSEAC’s L’établi de l’EAC platform now serves as the main entry point for the PRÉAC calendar, index and training offer.

 

Cultural facilitators and educators

Training in the cultural facilitation occupations is overseen, for the administrative aspects, by the Ministries of Sport and Youth, which award the facilitation diplomas.

"Cultural facilitation" is defined by the framework (référentiel) of the BPJEPS - Vocational Certificate for Youth, Non-Formal Education and Sport (brevet professionnel de la jeunesse, de l'éducation populaire et du sport), "cultural facilitation" specialism, which clarifies the role of the cultural facilitator.

This role must come within a non-formal education approach and foster "development of community ties", particularly for the people furthest removed from culture because of their social situation. In this regard, the facilitator designs and leads, completely independently, cultural events and projects with four key activities in mind:

1. Cultural guidance;
2. Organising group activities, developing expression and creativity;
3. Participation in implementing local partnerships in the realm of cultural facilitation;
4. Supporting amateur cultural practices and projects.

 On the subject of developing creativity, the facilitator must carry out appropriate educational initiatives using technical tools and media that s/he is familiar with (in terms of their characteristics) thanks to the training modules. 

The involvement of facilitators does not replace the need for artistic initiatives – rather, this should be complementary and serve as an invitation to take part in artistic and cultural practices.

 

Cultural sector professionals

The cultural sector spans several different occupations which can come under the private or public sector. Regarding cultural occupations coming under the administrative remit of the Ministry of Culture, these are listed in a directory (répertoire) of occupations of the Ministry of Culture, which describes all of the occupations practised by ministerial staff according to activity and competence.

In the same way as central government across France does, the Ministry of Culture primarily recruits civil servants through competitive examinations. Fixed-term contracts are also available.

The competitive exams are annual and prepare candidates for occupations in different sectors (administrative, documentation, education, research, technical aspects and surveillance, art occupations). Examples of the types of occupation accessible via the competitive exams of the Ministry of Culture are:

• State architect and urban planner
• Chief Architects of historic monuments
• Librarian
• Heritage curator
• Library stack staff
• Heritage and cultural services engineer
• Professor of national graduate schools of art

The courses giving candidates access to these occupations can be taken in universities and public or private higher education institutions.  

 

 

Providing quality access to creative environments

 

The creation of places, spaces of creativity is most often carried out at the scale of the territories, on the initiative of the local authorities, especially the municipalities in partnership with the deconcentrated services of the Ministry of Culture.

• Micro-Folies

The public establishment of the Parc de la Grande Halle at La Villette has created the "Micro-folies" which constitutes "flexible spaces of cultural democracy and playful access to the oeuvres of  national museums". It is mobile structures backed by an existing cultural structure (media library or hall of a town hall in the absence of a cultural venue) which integrate a digital museum  and a Fab-Lab.

The micro-folies mobilize among others 12 major operators of the Ministry of Culture : The Louvre museum,  the Georges-Pompidou museum,  the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac Museum, the RMN-Grand Palais, the Palace of Versailles, the Museum Picasso, Universcience, the Philharmonie of Paris, the Orsay Museum, the National Opera of Paris, the Institute of the Arab World and the Festival of Avignon.

Since 2018, 200 "Micro-Folies" have been installed throughout France, targeting in particular territories with less cultural facilities. These Micro-Folies can be installed perennially or  be on "tour" in several cities by stationing 6 months in each city. The state pays a part of the costs to support cities that want to install a  Micro-folie in their municipality.

 For more information on micro-folies see 8.6 Developing entrepreneurial skills through cultural activities.

• The 104

For example, the Paris City Council has founded the artistic public institution 104, which is a centre for residencies, production and dissemination for the general public and artists from all over the world. As somewhere to come and give free rein to artistic practices, the 104 also hosts exhibitions, concerts and performing arts shows (dance, theatre, circus, etc.). This unregulated open venue can be accessed freely with no booking required by young people keen on practising their art with no restrictions. The 104 is financed by public funding, which includes grants allocated by the City of Paris, the institution's own income and an endowment fund relying on contributions from the institution's partner sponsors.

• MJC - Youth and Culture Centres (Maisons de jeunes et de la culture)

MJCs are symbolic venues in terms of the cultural participation of young people. Set up in the postwar era, they really came into their own in the 1960s-'70s with the development of the non-formal education movement to which they still belong to this day.

Youth and culture centres are facilities open to all youths for practising cultural, artistic and recreational activities, developing their own artistic sensitivity and expression and forge their own identity as citizens. According to the confederation principles of MJCs, their role is "to help each [young person] to develop their sensitivity and intelligence and provide them with the cultural means necessary for them to thrive."

Indeed, MJC - Youth and culture centres (Maisons de jeunes et de la culture) are actually Non-formal education associations gathered within a confederation. They can be found all over France, across more than 700 branches.They rely on contributions from their members as well as public subsidies (municipal and ministerial). They have been accredited by the Ministry of Youth as their work is recognised to be in the public interest. These centres also receive funding from local authorities via Multiannual objectives and resources agreements.