BAC+2 to BAC+5
France counts years after secondary school. BAC+2 is two years of higher education, BAC+5 is five — roughly Bachelor's second year through to a Master.
About · CFI Formation, Clermont-Ferrand
An independent vocational college in central France. Since 1991, around two hundred students a year, in classes of about fifteen, trained for the jobs that actually exist rather than the ones that sound good in a brochure.
You will be checking whether this school is real before you send anyone a document. Here is what there is to check.
Figures published by CFI Formation · 2025 academic year
Most of our French students are in alternance — a work-study contract. They spend part of each week at CFI and the rest employed by a real company, which pays their tuition and a salary. There is no student debt at the end, and no first job spent explaining that you have never worked.
It shapes everything about how we teach. A large share of our faculty are practising professionals, not career academics. And the school works year-round with a network of local businesses — industrial sites and their suppliers, distributors, agencies, small firms.
To be clear: international students are not in alternance. A work-study contract requires a French employer and, in practice, French. What the network gives you instead is the part visiting students actually want — company visits, guest practitioners, and a real consulting brief.
See the programme →Six fields, from BAC+2 to BAC+5 — roughly the second year of a Bachelor through to a Master. All delivered in French.
Not a scattered campus you cross by tram. One building in Clermont-Ferrand where the classes, the food, the gym and the people you will spend four weeks with are all in the same place.
The French system is confusing from the outside, and some schools take advantage of that. Here is the honest version.
France counts years after secondary school. BAC+2 is two years of higher education, BAC+5 is five — roughly Bachelor's second year through to a Master.
Our degree programmes are registered in the RNCP — the French national register of professional qualifications. It is the public record employers check. Anyone can look a school up in it.
A Certificate of Achievement, issued and signed by CFI, with an official transcript in English and French — modules, 104 contact hours, results. It is awarded by the college, not by the French State, and it is what your own university uses to grant you credit. We would rather say it plainly.
About the certificate, the fees, the visa, or whether this is worth the flight. We answer within three working days, and we say no when the answer is no.
Talk to our team →