Qualité français langue étrangère

An official guarantee

The Qualité français langue étrangère label is the result of a quality-assurance approach undertaken by three French ministries : the Ministry for Higher Education and Research, the Ministry of Culture and Communication, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They are members of the Interministerial Certification Committee, which awards the label.

The label’s objectives

The Qualité français langue étrangère label was set up by decree in 2007 to identify, recognise, and promote centres of French as a foreign language of which the language offer and the services present guarantees of quality.

It is a matter of setting up a quality-assurance process to give the public confidence, and to help diplomatic posts and the French network of institutes and the Alliance Française to prescribe a reliable offer of French-language courses based on demand, the needs of the public, and students’ profiles.

It is also a matter of supporting centres in developing a gradual approach to improving the quality of services, whether or not the centres are candidates for being awarded the label, to the extent that all the tools are available and adapted for self-assessment.

The target public

All French-language centres in French territory that teach French to a foreign public and that meet a set of objective criteria can be awarded the Quality French as a Foreign Language label regardless of status: public, private, or voluntary.

In order to apply for the label, the centre must meetadmissibility criteria. 

The undertakings of the French State

By this quality-assurance process, the French State undertakes to recognise, by means of a label, the quality of services provided by French-language centres, and to promote all label-awarded centres through the French network of diplomatic posts, institutes, and Alliance Française.

The State also undertakes to disseminate information on the label and to make it an instrument for promoting the French language in the context of academic and professional mobility.