What were the criteria of the Grande École du Numérique label?

The Grande École du Numérique (GEN) label was never granted on simple declaration: from 2015 until the GIP’s dissolution in 2025, every candidate programme had to satisfy a precise framework combining teaching requirements, quantitative thresholds and inclusion commitments. Those criteria can no longer be used to apply — that is now impossible — but they remain the best operational description of what a serious inclusive digital training programme looks like. Here they are, as the GIP documented them in its final campaigns.

The eligibility criteria of the final campaigns

From 2021 onwards, labelling worked on a rolling basis: organisations could apply at any time, submitting a file describing the programme, its audiences and its results. The entry conditions were as follows:

Criterion	Requirement
Purpose	Train for a digital occupation (development, data, cybersecurity, digital mediation…)
Quality prerequisite	Qualiopi-certified organisation
Length	Minimum 350 hours, maximum 18 months (excluding work placements)
Cohort size	At least 10 learners per cohort
Audiences	People with few or no qualifications, seeking employment
Scope	The label covered one programme in one place, not the whole organisation
Validity	3 years

Three thresholds structured the scheme.

350 hours minimum. The label excluded short formats from the outset: discovery workshops, few-day introductions, isolated modules. The ambition was qualification for an occupation, which requires substantial hours — capped at 18 months to remain a fast route to employment, not an academic degree.

10 learners with few or no qualifications per cohort. This is the criterion that gave the label its identity. Being “open to everyone” was not enough: each cohort actually had to include at least ten people with few or no qualifications who were seeking work. Inclusion was measured in seats filled, not in intentions.

Qualiopi as a prerequisite. The GIP did not re-audit the organisation’s quality system: it relied on the existing Qualiopi certification and focused its assessment on what certification does not cover — the programme’s social project. We detail this interplay in GEN label vs Qualiopi.

Priority audiences: inclusion in numbers

Beyond the ten-learner threshold, the framework steered recruitment towards priority audiences: people qualified to baccalauréat level or below (the French secondary-school diploma), women — structurally under-represented in technical occupations —, and residents of priority urban neighbourhoods (QPV) and rural revitalisation zones (ZRR). Labelled providers had to report on the audiences enrolled and their positive outcomes to keep the label.

This targeting was not decorative: it answered a documented problem. The work of Alexander van Deursen and Jan van Dijk, published in 2014 in New Media & Society, shows that the digital divide is no longer only about access to tools but about usage: with equal connectivity, less-educated groups derive fewer socio-economic benefits from their digital practices (see the study). Training these audiences for digital occupations — not merely to “use a computer” — attacks that usage inequality at the root.

Another characteristic requirement: socio-professional support. Labelled programmes could not stop at technical content; they had to support learners on peripheral barriers (housing, mobility, confidence, job search). Here too, research validates the framework’s intuition: the study by Kyle Thayer and Amy J. Ko presented at the ICER conference in 2017, based on interviews with coding-bootcamp learners, shows that career changes into software rarely fail on technique alone — personal, financial and network costs are the main barriers (see the study).

What the label monitored over time

The label was awarded for three years, to a programme in a given place. Keeping it meant reporting regularly on results: audiences actually enrolled, positive-outcome rates (employment, business creation, further training). The GIP claimed, depending on the year, positive-outcome rates of at least 70% across the network. A programme that drifted from its commitments — audiences, results — risked not seeing its label renewed at the three-year mark.

What these criteria are still good for in 2026

The GIP was dissolved by the order of 8 January 2025 and no application is possible any more. But if you are building a digital training programme for people far from employment today, the GEN framework remains a remarkably concrete self-assessment grid:

1. Does your hourly volume target a real qualification? Below 350 hours, you are doing awareness-raising, not training for a digital occupation.
2. Is your inclusion measurable? How many people with few or no qualifications, how many women, how many QPV residents in your last three cohorts? If you cannot answer, start by counting.
3. Do you support learners beyond the technical content? Social barriers, job-search preparation, links with local referral bodies.
4. Do you publish your job outcomes? Dated, sourced rates are worth more than any label — and they feed directly into your evidence for the results requirements of the national quality framework.

These demands echo those of other schemes still active on basic digital skills, such as the authorisation to deliver CléA numérique, the French basic digital-skills credential.

Take action

Our Grande École du Numérique label page summarises the scheme — history, criteria, how it related to Qualiopi — and gives access to a free ebook detailing what to do instead today. For the quality baseline that remains mandatory, the Kit Certif Complet covers every indicator of the framework with procedures and model evidence.