As the school year starts, one of the recurring chal-lenges faced by the teaching community is school per-severance. It is particularly important for students of Damage Insurance considering the context of short-age of manpower in the industry. Furthermore, it can be tempting, for a business to hire students while they are in school, without fostering their studies. The Coa-lition pour la promotion des professions en assurance de dommages (Coalition) has elaborated an agreement for businesses in the industry to ally with schools to fos-ter these students’ school perseverance.

Safeguarding links between businesses and schools

Recruiting students while they are completing their program, through an internship or part time work, can encourage them to stay and complete their courses.  On the other hand, if recruiting is done to the detriment of obtaining a diploma, it leads to dropping out and is a menace to the links between schools and businesses. On the oth-er hand, these links are important. Their purpose is to initiate student to the realities of the industry, they promote their retention and graduation rates, they ensure a balance between training offers and the needs of the labor market, they facilitate the transfer of knowledge, etc.

Thus, the Coalition has elaborated this Entente pour la persévérance scolaire with the companies and the schools to promote their colla-boration for students’ school perseverance. 

A qualified business succession, a plus for businesses

Encouraging school perseverance is beneficial for businesses in the industry. Many of them have told the Coalition that trained employ-ees can integrate more easily into their job and that they already have the basic competencies to do their jobs. So, all aspects of the busi-ness enjoys the benefits: its reputation, the quality of its service, the work atmosphere, the retention of employees, etc.

The short-term manpower needs can’t be denied. The ‘Entente pour la persévérance scolaire’ encourages businesses and schools to work together to integrate internships and alternating work-studies into their training programs.

A beneficial formula for all that promotes training and graduation of students as well as their professional integration, to respond to the needs of organisations.