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[Feature] Back to school 2025: teaching and learning in the age of AI and digital control

Published on 25 September 2025
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Summary

Foreword

Two subjects dominate the educational digital news this autumn: the framework for digital use in schools, with, in particular, the generalization of the "digital break" in secondary schools (renamed "laptop break"), and the appropriation of artificial intelligence by the education system. The French Ministry of Education has published a framework for the use of artificial intelligence in education. In February 2025, it announced the development of a sovereign AI to support teachers in their day-to-day practices, and the creation of a Pix course dedicated to artificial intelligence for 2nd level students.

By ceasing to fund paper textbooks and reducing its budget for traditional digital textbooks, in favor of content designed specifically for the Pearltrees digital platform, the Ile-de-France region has reignited the debate on the use of digital and traditional textbooks, their funding and governance: a debate that runs through and divides the educational community.

The debate on digital education was also marked by the publication of three reports:

  • The Cour des Comptes (French National Audit Office) has taken a look atprimary education in 2025. It devotes a chapter of its report to the deployment of digital technology. In it, the Cour des Comptes looks back at school equipment policies and the systems put in place. " Despite all these initiatives, which aim to define a concerted strategy between the State and local authorities, and which demonstrate a concern for the appropriation of resources by teachers, many shortcomings are apparent in the development of digital technology in primary education ".
  • In its report on the use of digital technology in school-family relations, the General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) gives a rather positive assessment of digital workspaces (ENT). It is concerned, however, about the quasi-monopolistic position of a private publisher in the school life software market. The inspectorate warns of the intensive use of ENTs and school life software, particularly outside school hours. It recommends the implementation of a right to disconnect (no new publications between 8pm and 7am, nor during weekends and vacations). At a time when families who are the furthest removed from the digital world have difficulty accessing or understanding ENT, the Inspectorate recommends mobilizing local authorities, associations, digital advisors, France Services and family allowance funds, as part of an "educational alliance", to maintain and develop support for families in all regions.
  • In June 2025, the same Inspectorate General published a report on artificial intelligence in schools. In it, the Inspectorate recommends the rapid implementation of a massive training plan for managers, as well as the rapid introduction of "face-to-face training in all schools to introduce all teachers as quickly as possible to the challenges and primary uses of AI in education". The inspectorate calls for " the construction of a national discourse" around AI, linking digital technology and pedagogy, "enabling equitable deployment throughout the country".

In this report, the Inspectorate General points to a number of contradictions in " the national discourse" on AI held by the institution, foremost among which is "a contradiction between the need to train students in AI and the need to respect a 'digital pause'". A contradiction "which, at least in terms, creates uncertainty about the use of certain digital tools with pupils (particularly in the 1st degree, where the digital break is widely understood as a halt to the use of screens with pupils)".

AI in education: a rapid need for training at all levels, a coherent national discourse to build on

In May 2025, the General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) published a report on artificial intelligence in schools. The report is organized in three parts: the first takes stock of AI's place in schools. It is based on a field survey and a consultation (4,943 teachers from five academies took part). The second part looks at the integration of AI into teaching, and the training issues involved (for students, teachers and managers). The third part addresses the issue of AI management in the education system.

The inspectorate strives to identify " areas for rapid action " (the word "rapid" appears 35 times).

A rapid need for training at all levels to ensure that AI is used wisely in education

" Whatever the audience interviewed (students, teachers, managers), they all point to the lack of training as a major obstacle. The media frenzy reinforces, for some players, the feeling of already being outdated ".

The mission recommends the rapid implementation of a massive training plan for managers, as well as the rapid introduction of "face-to-face training in all schools to introduce all teachers as quickly as possible to the challenges and primary uses of AI in education".

"As the issue of AI is likely to evolve rapidly, the school level appears to be the most appropriate to enable a multi-year training plan, the exchange of practices within teams, and the development of a common AI discourse and strategy in each school".

As far as students are concerned, even if reticence is less strong, "the need for training, a framework and guidance on the part of teaching staff is clearly expressed. The mission recommends the rapid implementation of an AI training curriculum that will enable both the training of future specialists and the education of all students in the challenges and uses of AI. Such a curriculum must draw on all school disciplines.

Rapid need for coordination at all levels to ensure equitable deployment across the country

Numerous AI initiatives are currently being developed at school, academy and central administration level: "However, all too often, they remain dependent on the impetus of one person (teacher or manager) who is personally committed to these themes. It is essential that these initiatives be better coordinated, so that they can be shared, evaluated from a pedagogical point of view and promoted throughout the country.

The inspectorate found that "AI governance is still too scattered", and that there are tensions "between a traditionally centralized operation and an administrative reality that is now decentralized. It also points to the existence of duplication. These are particularly visible in the field of training, which is developing without coordinated management between the central administration (DNE, DGESCO, IGÉSR), national operators (Réseau Canopé, France Université Numérique) and academic players".

The Inspectorate General recommends the rapid establishment of coordination bodies at various levels:

  • At facility level: this is the level at which strategic choices can be made, adapted to the public served and to specific local conditions;
  • At the academic level, to monitor the rapid deployment of the training plan, the AI curriculum and the AI strategy in schools;
  • At national level, with the creation of a national AI council bringing together all the players in the administration.

The need for a sustainable business model

The question of tools, and in particular the availability of sovereign tools, is a strong expectation in the field. "In this context, the strategy adopted by the French Ministry of Education aims to encourage the use of sovereign tools that comply with regulations, without prohibiting the use of mass-market tools that students already use.

Questions remain, however, about the cost of using these tools, whether for the general public or specifically developed for education. "Indeed, the French Ministry of Education has encouraged the development of an EdTech sector through P2IA experiments, which have led to the creation of specific tools (...) often acclaimed by experimental teachers, but whose added value has yet to be established. What's more, funding for large-scale, long-term deployment of these tools is currently not guaranteed.

Building a coherent national discourse

The Inspectorate is incisive in pointing out a series of contradictions in "national discourse".

"The lack of coordination between digital and pedagogical steering at national level, coupled with the difficulty of steering in an uncertain context (notably due to the volatility of technologies)" results in a series of contradictions.

  • "a contradiction between the need to train students in AI and the need to respect a "digital break" which, at least in terms, creates uncertainty about the use of certain digital tools with students (particularly in the 1st degree, where the digital break is widely understood as a halt to the use of screens with students) ;
  • a contradiction between the need to train students in AI and a return to fundamentals, often equated with teaching based on "traditional" methods considered more effective by a significant number of players in the field;
  • a contradiction between the deployment of AI, its ecological consequences and education for sustainable development in a school that chooses to use energy-hungry technologies;
  • a contradiction between the injunction of the need to train students in AI and the absence of sovereign tools".

The Inspectorate calls for " the construction of a coherent national discourse to provide a clear line between these various contradictions". It would be up to the national AI council to elaborate "this common discourse around AI, articulating digital and pedagogical aspects and enabling equitable deployment across the whole territory".

Référence :

What the AI in Education Framework provides for

On June 14, 2025, the French Ministry of Education published a framework for the use of artificial intelligence in education, the result of a consultation conducted from January to May 2025. For the first time, this document provides a framework for the pedagogical and administrative uses of generative AI in education.

The Usage Framework authorizes the use of AI subject to strict compliance with the values of the École de la République, legal obligations (RGPD, SREN law, European AI regulation).

It sets out a number of principles:

  • "AI must be used responsibly and reflectively, drawing on the professional expertise of the staff it can assist, but never replace.
  • "AI should only be used if no other less ecologically costly solution satisfactorily meets the need".
  • "The use of open-source solutions must be favored".
  • "The use of AI services accessible to the general public is authorized provided that no confidential or personal data is used.
  • "No member of staff should ask students to use consumer AI services involving the creation of a personal account".
  • "The use of AI in educational, pedagogical or administrative decision-making must be exercised transparently and responsibly, with explicit communication about its role and how it has been used."

Teacher-supported and supervised use

"In a pedagogical context, the use of AI to assist and not replace learning and intellectual effort must be supervised and accompanied by the teacher".

1st grade students are made aware of basic AI knowledge, but without directly handling generative AI services".

  • As early as the first grade, students are introduced to basic AI knowledge, but without directly handling generative AI services.
  • The pedagogical use of generative AI by students, supervised, explained and accompanied by the teacher, is authorized in the classroom from 4th grade onwards, in line with the objectives of school programs and the CRCN.
  • Throughout their school career, students receive compulsory training in AI and the issues it raises, at least in 4th year, 2nd year of general, technological and vocational courses, and in the first year of the CAP on the Pix platform.
  • In high school, students can use them independently within a learning and training framework explicitly defined by the teacher.

While teachers can propose teaching sequences integrating AI (without students manipulating generative AI before 4th grade), the usage framework reminds us that they must "take care to develop students' critical thinking about these technologies and their use (issues, potential, recommendations for drafting queries, limits and risks)".

For teaching purposes (assistance with lesson preparation, assessment, correction, etc.), " any teacher can use AI accessible to the general public, under his or her own responsibility, bearing in mind that, like any data or information used for teaching purposes, AI-generated productions must be verified and cross-referenced with other sources".

With regard to homework, the usage framework specifies that " the use of an AI to complete all or part of a school assignment, without explicit authorization from the teacher and without it being followed by personal appropriation work based on the content produced, constitutes fraud".

Référence :

A worried AI craze in schools

"Individual, personal practices have long been ahead of policy announcements, and often in the opposite direction. The school world is no exception to these contradictions, which it experiences on a daily basis," observes Bruno Devauchelle (Doctor in ICT) on the Café Pégagique website. "On the one hand, enthusiasts are firing on all cylinders to express their enthusiasm for the potential of AI in education. On the other, teachers are increasingly questioning the dangers, effects and consequences of AI.

"The world of teaching is all the more worried now that the power and proposals of AI are impressive and touch the heart of the profession (...) A student can claim new academic performances with the help of AI. Whether they use it in response to the demands and injunctions of their teachers, or to develop themselves, it is the role and even the place of the teacher that is in question. Teachers, for their part, will use AI to enrich their teaching, whether in terms of media (texts, photos, videos, etc.), content (selection, synthesis) or the design of their teaching (assessment, progression, etc.). Whether they admit it or not, teachers are now using AI more and more".

"Training teachers in AI - yes, but how?" asks Bruno Devauchelle. "On the face of it, it seems straightforward. In day-to-day practice, it's less obvious. First of all, when can teachers be trained? And if it's not in front of the students, will webinars be used (...) Our in-house experience, as a speaker, leads us to believe that this will only be useful if a real collective effort to monitor and share information is put in place in the school. The first step is for everyone to embark on a process of appropriation, the first part of which is personal empowerment, followed by discussion and co-development of how AI can and should be incorporated into everyday life. Worries need to be replaced by a sense of sufficient mastery, both in terms of various limitations and relevant, critical uses".

"We can't ignore our students' use of AI, but we can't abandon our ambition to train their human intelligence".

InTélérama, the Education Numérique Raisonée collective, which now includes some thirty teachers and management staff, calls for a wide-ranging debate on AI in schools.

"For some months now, pupils and students have been using them en masse to delegate their thinking and writing tasks. This observation is provoking a real crisis of meaning for teachers: can we still get students to think for themselves when they have unlimited, free and almost instantaneous access to a virtual assistant that short-circuits any attempt at personal reflection?" (...) We can't ignore the use of AI by our students, but we can't abandon our ambition to train their human intelligence. We must therefore support them in their enlightened use of AI, so that it enhances their intellectual capacities rather than atrophying them. That's what it's all about.

"In its framework document, the French Ministry of Education attempts to define what this good use would be. It offers some general common-sense advice, but appears helpless in the face of the actual use that students make of AI - namely, to offload their work. In fact, when it comes to homework, it is technically impossible to prevent them from using AI-generated content. Faced with this reality, the French Ministry of Education has decided to use AI as a learning tool, authorizing "the pedagogical use of generative AI by pupils, supervised, explained and accompanied by the teacher" from the fourth grade onwards.

However, accepting that the human brain in training relies on AI-generated results, even if reworked, is dangerous on two counts.

On the one hand, this approach threatens students' creativity, because it reinforces the idea that, having become inescapable, AI provides the basic material required before any human reflection, erasing the singularity and diversity of their own paths. (...) On the other hand, this approach requires students to take a step back, which they are often incapable of doing. To critically examine the results generated by AI, you first need to have learned how to produce them yourself".

The collective concludes: "We need to train students in AI through dedicated teaching and, for other subjects, make them understand the need not to give in to the ease it offers them. To convince them of this, we need to reinvent an education that values the joy of creating, the taste for effort and the importance of making mistakes".

Références :

Reinforced measures for supervising the use of digital technology in schools

In her Circulaire de rentrée, 2025, Élisabeth Borne, Minister of National Education, Higher Education and Research, summarizes the main provisions relating to " thereasoned use of digital technology in schools".

"The use of digital technology at school must be part of a progressive approach, adapted to each stage of schooling, to ensure the structured and coherent development of students' skills and enable them to build their citizenship. The health and well-being of students must be fully taken into account, with particular attention paid to limiting excessive exposure to screens and ensuring that digital technology adds educational value. This approach will be regularly presented and explained to families, particularly at the start of the school year.

The experimentation of digital breaks in middle schools has demonstrated positive effects on the school climate, the serenity of students and staff, and the availability of students for learning. The widespread introduction of the Portable en pause system in middle schools should ensure that students' cell phones and other connected objects are effectively kept away from the classroom. The organization of the system will be determined within each middle school in conjunction with the departments and families.

At the lycée, students will be involved in a debate on the place of cell phones within the school, and more generally on digital technology, notably within school democracy bodies. These discussions will feed into the school project.

At the same time, the updating of digital workspaces and school life software will be suspended by default in the evening from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. and on weekends from Friday 8 p.m. to Monday 7 a.m. (with the exception of schools open on Saturday mornings - from Saturday 2 p.m. to Monday 7 a.m.)".

These provisions will be detailed in a circular inJuly 2025.

Only 8.5% of secondary schools have set up the "Laptop at break" scheme for the start of the new school year.

Two weeks after the resumption of classes, just 8.5% of secondary schools have actually implemented the "Portable en pause" system, reportsLe Monde. According to a survey conducted by the Syndicat national des personnels de direction de l'Éducation nationale (SNPDEN-UNSA). 67% of school heads do not intend to apply it. 42.8% of school heads admit to being in favor of the principle, but consider it too complicated to implement. Only 6.9% feel that it is possible to organize with existing resources. For many school heads, the 2018 ban already effectively regulates cell phone use. In many schools, mobile phone use is now close to zero. They therefore see no need to complicate the system by systematically collecting devices.

Références :

A single digital platform, paper textbooks, digital textbooks: a debate that is resurfacing and dividing the education community

From the start of the 2025 school year, all high school students and teachers in the Île-de-France region will have to use Pearltrees, a unique digital platform for accessing textbooks. The Île-de-France region will stop funding paper textbooks and reduce its budget for traditional digital textbooks, in favor of content designed specifically for Pearltrees and accessible free of charge.

This decision sparked controversy, with the publication of an article in Le Monde, co-signed by textbook publishers, teachers and writers. "It's not just a technical choice.a choice for society. It involves the transmission of knowledge, the link between schools and families, and the freedom of teachers". The signatories point to three errors. "The first is the error of believing that a pile of digital resources can replace a structuring textbook, designed in its entirety by professionals. A textbook enables the progressive construction of knowledge, the legibility of the course and the link between concepts. (...) The error, then, of believing that all pupils have the material and family conditions to find their way around an unstructured world on their own. (...) The error, finally, of believing that innovation requires the imposition of a single tool, designed and administered by a community".

On the Café pédagogique website, Jean-Michel Le Baut, French teacher in Brest and active in the Living Lab Interactik in Rennes, calls for a " reorientation of the debate ". "What if, in this "new school war", we were to work towards a ceasefire? This means overcoming certain biased positions: for or against textbooks, for or against digital technology. It might also mean listening to what others have to say, in order to enlighten and reconsider the debate. Jean-Michel Le Baut begins by distinguishing between "Pearltrees.com", a curation service for the general public, and "Pearltrees Education", the educational service currently deployed in almost 2,000 establishments in France, including high schools in the Paris region. "In real-world educational use, it's a perfectly secure platform, integrated into the GAR, where you build collaborative workspaces and sharing with your classes. Is it difficult to get used to? On the contrary, many users, including students, stress its simplicity and fluidity, provided they use it regularly. As always, this requires ongoing training in its use and possibilities.

To teachers who deplore a " loss of pedagogical control or freedom "Jean-Michel Le Baut points out that "the use of Pearltrees Education is less about accessing digital textbooks (when they are available) than about producing their own 'textbooks', personal or customized, evolving, adapted, differentiated, collaborative, multimedia (...).(...) The platform opens up possibilities not offered by the usual textbooks, whether paper or digital, possibilities that colleagues have found particularly valuable when it came to ensuring "pedagogical continuity" in times of confinement (...). The reality is far more complex and interesting than that portrayed by certain conservatisms, be they economic, political or pedagogical ".

However, Jean-Michel Le Baut acknowledges that questions remain, particularly in terms of governance. "Can we once again massively deploy a teaching tool without consulting the teaching staff? Should we orchestrate a brutal competition between textbooks and platforms, between paper and digital, instead of seeking to articulate them intelligently, instead of encouraging freedom of choice according to the pedagogy we want to implement?".

Références :

Ways to improve the digital relationship between school and parents

Digital technology, with the deployment of digital workspaces (ENT) in the 2000s, and the concomitant rollout of school life software, has profoundly transformed school-family relations, both in terms of pace and methods. Parents now have direct access to course content, diaries, grades, homework and absences. In 2020, the health crisis marked an important turning point in the use of ENT to ensure pedagogical continuity.

This digitization of the school-family relationship, while strengthening parents' ability to support homework, is not without consequences: the possibility for parents to monitor schoolwork on a daily basis can increase pressure at school, with closer supervision, which is not always experienced positively by students, especially those in difficulty or dropping out.

Teachers, for their part, may " feel that their work is being interfered with because parents and their superiors have access to some of their course content", observed the Cnesco in 2020. " They also feel a form of interference in their personal lives because of messaging, and they fear too much solicitation from students and/or parents".

In a report devoted to the impact of digital technology on relations between schools and families, the French General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGÉSR) warns of the intensive use of ENT and school life software, particularly outside school hours. It recommends the implementation of a right to disconnect (no new publications between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m., nor during weekends and vacations).

Pointing out that the families furthest away from digital technology have difficulty accessing or understanding ENT, the inspectorate recommends mobilizing departmental councils, associations, digital advisors and France Services, as well as family allowance funds, within the framework of an "educational alliance", to maintain and develop this support in all regions.

The Inspectors General have formulated 16 measures to restore coherence to the development of ENT and school life software, to remove obstacles to their use, to support parents who are far removed from digital technology, and to correct the sometimes stressful use of these tools.

Read more : How is digital technology transforming the school-family relationship?

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Par ailleurs le perfectionnement de l’outil est un atout bien identifié, qui pourra être mis à profit dans l’hypothèse de crises futures ».« Au regard d’autres vecteurs de communication (réseaux sociaux, messageries privées) souvent utilisés par les personnels, les parents et les élèves, par commodité, ou par réflexe, et sans en mesurer les risques, l’ENT offre par ailleurs, de l’avis des personnes entendues, un environnement de confiance, sécurisé, qui répond aux exigences du RGPD et fait l’objet d’une contractualisation entre les acteurs à partir d’un cahier des charges protecteur ». L’émergence d’un acteur dominant dans la relation numérique école-familleAlors que les régions et les départements concentraient leurs efforts et leurs financements sur le déploiement des ENT, conçus principalement comme un portail, comme un point d’entrée unifié donnant accès à une large gamme de services, les chefs d’établissements se procuraient auprès d’autres éditeurs (comme Index Education) des logiciels de confection des emplois du temps, qui n’étaient fournis ni par les éditeurs d’ENT, ni par le ministère.En étendant les fonctionnalités de ces logiciels EDT à la gestion de la vie scolaire (absences, retards, bulletins) et en les intégrant dans les ENT (avec l’accord des collectivités), les éditeurs de logiciels de vie scolaire (Pronote, en premier lieu, mis au point par la société Index Education) ont pris pied sur le marché des ENT. Les logiciels sont progressivement devenus le principal vecteur des relations école-famille, éclipsant les autres services proposés par les ENT.« Deux éditeurs, Index Éducation et Aplim, sont majoritaires, voire quasi monopolistiques, sur le marché des logiciels de vie scolaire, logiciels qui sont en fait des plateformes accessibles en mode web et via une application mobile ».La Cour des Comptes s’était émue, dès 2020, de la montée en puissance de la société Index Education : « La prédominance d’un éditeur privé crée de fait une forte relation de dépendance entre cette société et les établissements scolaires, chacun client d’une même solution logicielle. Outre les aspects financiers, se posent d’une part la question de l’ouverture aux données des élèves et de leur protection » .Une inquiétude relayée, en 2025, par l’IGESR : « Pronote, du fait de sa position quasi-monopolistique en tant que logiciel de vie scolaire, présente le risque d’apparaître comme l’acteur dominant dans la relation numérique de l’école aux familles ».L’IGESR pointe, notamment, un certain nombre de pratiques tarifaires.La société Index Education « imposerait aux établissements scolaires, lorsqu’un ENT autre que sa propre solution est mis en œuvre en leur sein, une tarification d’interopérabilité pour l’échange des données issues de son logiciel, avec des coûts supplémentaires jugés importants par les EPLE ».Le SMS s’est progressivement imposé dans les établissements pour atteindre les familles, notamment pour signaler l’absence d’un élève à ses parents (SMS individuel), rappeler des réunions importantes ou communiquer en situation d’urgence ou de crise (SMS vers tout ou partie des parents). Selon l’IGESR, la tarification des SMS par Index Education serait « près de 60 % plus chère que les tarifs accessibles au ministère pour la diffusion de SMS (…) Des alternatives à moindre coût existent mais ne peuvent pas être directement couplées à Pronote ». L’IGESR ajoute « qu’en en raison du coût important des SMS et de leur poids sur le budget de l’établissement scolaire, plus particulièrement dans les collèges, certains chefs d’établissement en ont restreint fortement ou abandonné l’usage du SMS ».« Ce rôle central », conclut l'IGESR, « peut fragiliser l’action du ministère dans sa volonté de régulation des services numériques, particulièrement en lien avec les acteurs privés. Par ailleurs, certaines données renseignées par les établissements scolaires dans les logiciels EDT et Pronote sont nécessaires au fonctionnement des ENT dans le second degré. Elles portent notamment sur l’organisation pédagogique, les emplois du temps ou les informations nécessaires au tableau de bord des actualités. Le ministère gagnerait à se doter d’un cadre à destination des acteurs (collectivités territoriales, éditeurs, chefs d’établissement) qui fixe la circulation des données, favorise l’interopérabilité et soit opposable ». Un foisonnement d’outils, une mise en cohérence nécessaireLe ministère de l’Education dressait, en 2023, à l’occasion de la publication de sa stratégie numérique pour l’éducation, un bilan des difficultés rencontrées dans l’usage des outils numériques proposés par l’écosystème de l’éducation : « des interfaces complexes et hétérogènes, peu attractives, parfois éloignées des standards, inégalement accessibles et guère adaptées à la mobilité, une absence de portabilité des données nécessitant de multiples ressaisies, des ruptures de connexion entre les outils, des performances insuffisantes, etc. Cette situation (…) se traduit directement dans la qualité du service offert, avec une offre numérique éclatée entre de multiples portails ou services en ligne opérés par l’État (portail Scolarité services), les différents niveaux de collectivités locales et différents opérateurs publics et privés (logiciels de vie scolaire notamment). Cette multiplicité d’outils crée un parcours labyrinthique et incertain au détriment des usages, de la confiance et de la liberté de choix de certaines ressources numériques. Une réflexion commune des acteurs est nécessaire pour lever ces obstacles ».Pour structurer cette offre foisonnante, le ministère de l’éducation tablait sur le déploiement d’une authentification unifiée via ÉduConnect (avec l’objectif de 100 % des élèves utilisant leur identité ÉduConnect pour accéder aux outils et ressources numériques éducatifs à la rentrée 2026.Deux ans plus tard, l’IGESR actualise ce diagnostic : elle recense toute une série de difficultés qui résultent de la multiplicité des acteurs (ministère, collectivités, éditeurs privés) et de leur difficulté à se coordonner.« Le déploiement des ENT, sans plan directeur national, a pu provoquer de la perplexité et une certaine confusion chez les parents obligés parfois de gérer deux ou trois ENT différents en fonction du niveau de scolarisation de leurs enfants ».« Des parcours d’usage parfois déroutants » : « Si historiquement l’accès à l’ENT s’est fait par un navigateur à partir d’un ordinateur, l’apparition depuis 2010 des usages mobiles et plus récemment des applications mobiles a conduit à une fragmentation difficile à suivre pour les acteurs. Ainsi la cohabitation de l’application mobile ENT et de l’application Pronote peut engendrer des flux de communications, d’informations, et des sollicitations dans l’une ou l’autre des applications ou dans les deux. Cette juxtaposition de deux applications mobiles a fait perdre à l’ENT son rôle d’agrégateur, qui permettait depuis un point unique d’accéder aux différents services ».« Des recouvrements fonctionnels entre certains services, par exemple la messagerie et le cahier de textes, lorsqu’ils sont présents et activés tant dans l’ENT que dans le logiciel de vie scolaire. Si des établissements ont tenté de trouver une solution à ce problème en communiquant exclusivement par Pronote avec les parents, c’est en renonçant à certaines fonctionnalités pourtant essentielles comme la messagerie de l’ENT, en général jugée plus performante, notamment pour l’envoi de pièces jointes ».« l’emploi d’identifiants multiples, source de confusion pour les familles et les élèves mais aussi surcroit de travail d’assistance de la part des personnels éducatifs. (…) La mise en place d’EduConnect dans un ENT est à la main des collectivités territoriales ou des éditeurs. Mais certaines collectivités souhaitent maintenir une identité propre à l’ENT, et quelques établissements scolaires, de leur côté, décident de ne pas mettre en œuvre l’ENT de la collectivité, pourtant couplé à EduConnect, et déploient uniquement Pronote. Dans tous les cas, le choix de ne pas adosser le fonctionnement des services numériques de l’établissement scolaire à l’identité EduConnect prive les parents et les élèves d’un accès simplifié et sécurisé à l’ensemble des services ».L’IGESR plaide pour « une mise en cohérence des outils (...) autour d’un parcours utilisateur simplifié qui agrège les différents services constitutifs d’un ENT, y compris ceux de vie scolaire et les téléservices de l’éducation nationale, de façon à faciliter leur accès. La DGESCO, la DNE, les régions académiques et les collectivités territoriales doivent conduire cette mise en cohérence du parcours d’usage et des services, en associant les représentants des familles et les éditeurs / intégrateurs ».EduConnect est l’un des leviers de cette mise en cohérence : « une seule identité d’accès des parents et des élèves à l’ensemble des services est nécessaire. EduConnect doit être déployé par tous les projets ENT dans les écoles et établissements scolaires publics. Les régions académiques doivent y travailler avec les collectivités territoriales ». Parents éloignés du numérique : « Des réponses encore insuffisantes »Le déploiement des ENT a été très tôt confronté au cas des familles les plus éloignées du numérique. « La crise sanitaire a mis en évidence l’importance des « inégalités quotidiennes » du numérique : qualité des connexions et leurs contraintes (comme les forfaits bloqués), absence ou faible qualité des équipements, partage intrafamilial des équipements, faible maitrise des outils de communication avec les enseignants » (Stratégie numérique pour l‘éducation).Il apparait « contradictoire et problématique que les parents qui ont le plus souvent besoin de bénéficier d’une aide pour leurs enfants ne puissent pas accéder à l’information qui leur est destinée à cause des infrastructures et de l’existence d’une fracture numérique entre l’école et la maison » observait le CNESCO en 2020.L’IGESR dresse, à son tour, le constat « d’une importante fracture numérique particulièrement marquée dans les établissements REP, REP+ et lycées professionnels, et de façon globale dans les établissements dont l’indice de position sociale (IPS62) est faible et au-dessous de la moyenne nationale … La fragilité socio-économique peut se doubler d’une fragilité linguistique et culturelle. C’est le cas d’une partie des familles allophones, plus exposées à cette double fragilité qui peut aggraver leur insécurité numérique ».« Face à de telles situations (qui peuvent présenter des degrés divers de gravité en fonction des établissements), aussi bien l’institution scolaire que les collectivités territoriales, le monde associatif ont essayé d’apporter des réponses ». L’IGESR recense un grand nombre d’initiatives locales (aides à l’équipement, réunions d’information ou de médiation, accompagnement des parents) que nationales, comme la « Trousse à projets ». L’inspection tire les enseignements de la politique des Territoires numériques éducatifs (TNE) mise en œuvre depuis 2021 dans une douzaine de départements. « Les TNE ont montré la difficulté à toucher et sensibiliser les parents, et les écueils rencontrés lors du déploiement du volet relatif à la parentalité numérique. Mais ce déploiement (doté d’un budget global de 7 M€) a permis d’expérimenter et de développer des pratiques et des organisations modélisantes ».La mission recommande de mobiliser, dans le cadre d’une « alliance éducative » les conseils départementaux, les associations (Ligue de l’enseignement, CEMEA, associations familiales), les conseillers numériques et France Services, les caisses d'allocations familiales, pour maintenir et développer, dans l’ensemble des territoires, cet accompagnement.« Au regard des difficultés multiples rencontrées par les familles les plus éloignées des ressources et des compétences numériques, l’IGESR plaide pour « une gouvernance interministérielle de l’accompagnement à la parentalité numérique, à laquelle le Ministère de l’éducation doit contribuer sur le volet scolaire et éducatif (…) Cette politique pourrait être portée par le ministère en charge de la famille, et s’appuyer sur la coordination d’un ensemble de contributeurs pour plus de cohérence et d’efficacité ». Le droit à la déconnexionMalgré l’intérêt très largement reconnu des ENT, de nombreux témoignages ont alerté la mission de l'IGESR « sur les utilisations intempestives et parfois inappropriées des outils, générant de toutes parts du stress et témoignant d’un moindre respect non seulement de la vie privée à laquelle chacun aspire, mais aussi de la préservation de la santé nécessaire pour tous ».C’est le cas, par exemple, lorsque les parents prennent connaissance des notes en même temps que les élèves, voire parfois avant que ces derniers n’aient reçu de correction ou de remise de leur copie. Cela peut générer des tensions intrafamiliales, notamment lorsque la note est perçue comme insatisfaisante et que l’élève se trouve en difficulté pour en expliquer les critères d’évaluation.C'est principalement la question du droit à la déconnexion qui émerge. Certain.es enseignant.es portent des devoirs dans le cahier de textes qui n’ont pas été indiqués en classe et peuvent apparaître le soir pour le lendemain, le week-end pour le lundi ou au milieu des vacances scolaires. En sens inverse, les personnel.les de l’éducation nationale souhaitent également que soient encadrées les sollicitations des parents et des élèves leur parvenant le soir ou le week-end.Sauf en cas d'extrême urgence, le rapport recommande de paramétrer les outils numériques de façon à organiser une coupure des mises à jour et notifications après 19h avec reprise à 7h30 le lendemain matin et d'éviter la réception de notifications durant les congés scolaires. Pix parents : un nouvel outil pour la parentalité numériqueDepuis 2021, tous les collégiens et lycéens français certifient leurs compétences numériques avec Pix.Pix s’adresse désormais aux parents, avec le lancement de nouveaux parcours thématiques liés à la parentalité numérique : des petits modules courts pour évaluer ses compétences face à des situations variées, et pour aborder des sujets comme le contrôle parental, les réseaux sociaux, la prévention du cyberharcèlement, ou encore l’orientation de ses enfants avec ParcourSup par exemple. Neuf parcours thématiques ont été mis en ligne.Lire la suite : Pix parents : un nouvel outil pour la parentalité numérique

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" numerous shortcomings (...) in the development of digital technology in primary education".

In its report on primary education in 2025, the Cour des Comptes (French National Audit Office) makes a harsh assessment of the deployment of digital technology in schools.

The Cour des Comptes looks back at school equipment policies and the measures put in place: the "digital base for elementary schools" call for projects (financed by France Relance to the tune of €115 million), the PIX+Edu positioning tests offered to all primary school teachers, and the "Territoires numériques éducatifs" (educational digital territories) grouping together 13,000 schools (€200 million mobilized in 12 départements). " Despite all these initiatives, which aim to define a concerted strategy between the State and local authorities, and which demonstrate a concern for the appropriation of resources by teachers, many shortcomings are apparent in the development of digital technology in primary education ". The Cour des Comptes regrets that " there is no consolidated view of the state of development and use of digital media in primary education".

"Another difficulty in implementing this policy is measuring the risk of inequalities resulting from the uneven financial investment of local authorities, due to the wide diversity of their financial capacities. The division of responsibilities between the State (which defines the reference systems) and local authorities (which finance the equipment) " no longer corresponds to the reality of these materials at a time when artificial intelligence is emerging, which imperatively implies the implementation of a new strategy with a single level of responsibility for the use and deployment of digital technology in schools".

"The Cour des Comptes adds: " From now on, equipment should be more closely geared to identified educational needs, in consultation with all partners, so as to put in place a real strategy for the future, to benefit the well-being and development of pupils throughout their school career.

In the end, concludes the Cour des Comptes, "a number of measures are needed to better adapt digital equipment to pedagogical needs, making it fully available for learning. We need to ensure that the use of educational digital technology is progressive, to take into account factors related to children's development and well-being. The question of initial and in-service training for teachers is, in this respect, decisive, the ultimate aim being to encourage them to better integrate digital technology as a tool at the service of teaching".

Référence :

"Promote graduated education in and through digital technology, with its rightful place at school".

A group of 60 researchers, academics and business leaders in the digital education sector are calling for digital education to be given its rightful place in schools, far from clichés and the prevailing tendency to "pamphleteer".

"(...) We, education professionals, researchers, associations and entrepreneurs, are warning of the dangers of confusing screens, social networks and digital education. Schools are not "digitized". Data from the French Ministry of Education bear witness to this: teachers complain of outdated equipment and poor connectivity, making it difficult to implement innovative pedagogies adapted to students' needs. It's not the use of digital technology in schools that's the problem. The school offers a structured, protected time devoted to the development of intelligence and secured by the Ministry. This time deserves to be valued: digital content can support learning, if accompanied by appropriate training. They facilitate pedagogical differentiation in increasingly heterogeneous classes, and are an extraordinary opportunity for students with special needs.

Rather than accusing schools of "hyper-digitization", it would be fairer and more effective to attack the sector's foreign giants, whose business models are based on capturing data, including children's, and on deliberately addicting designs. In contrast, the French digital education sector is working to create a responsible digital environment that respects students' data and attention.

To meet these challenges, we propose a path. This path is being written at a time when generative artificial intelligence, media and information literacy, and the capacity for discernment are taking on increasing importance in society. This is neither inevitable nor dangerous. What we need to do is promote a gradual education in and through the digital world, one that is supervised and controlled, and that has its rightful place in schools and in teacher training. If schools don't fulfill this role, how will young people learn, in an equitable manner, to use digital technology in a reasoned and civic manner? (...)

This path we are proposing implies teacher training and evaluation before any widespread use of these tools. Let's have this ambition for our school and for all our children".

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    [Feature] Back to school 2024: digital education torn between sensible use of screens and appropriation of artificial intelligence

    ForewordThe deployment of digital technology in the education system is subject to both expectations and "contradictory injunctions ". At a time when generative intelligences are finding their way into educational practices, alerts and warnings are multiplying, calling for a "reasoned use " of screens and technologies in schools.In July 2023, in a report entitled "Technologies in education: who's in charge? ", UNESCO called for "the judicious use of technologies in education (...). We must teach children to live both with and without technology; to pick what they need from the mass of information available, but leave aside what is not necessary; to allow technology to provide support, without ever supplanting human interaction in teaching and learning".Based on data from the latest PISA survey, the OECD in 2024 called for a " fight against distraction" caused by exposure to screens at school. Excessive use of digital devices for leisure purposes in the classroom can have a negative impact on students' academic performance".In April 2024, the commission of experts commissioned by the President of the Republic to assess the issues attached to children's exposure to screens, recommended, among other things, strengthening the application of the ban on phones in middle school and systematizing smartphone-free spaces in high school.The Ministry of Education's September 2024 back-to-school circular bears witness to these debates and warnings, with the experimentation of a "digital break" in middle schools, " so that the ban on cell phone use provided for by law is effective and total over the entire school day".While it emphasizes "the reasoned use of screens and the appropriation of a responsible digital culture", this circular also lays the foundations of a doctrine for "the reasoned use of the possibilities offered by tools using artificial intelligence".In 2023, a study by the Direction de l'Evaluation, de la Prospective et de la Performance (DEPP) reopens the debate on the link between digital technology and educational inequality. For the first time, the DEPP is measuring students' mastery of digital skills at the end of secondary school. Nearly two out of three pupils (63.5%) have a satisfactory command of digital skills, but this assessment highlights significant differences according to social profile. Students from the least-favored middle schools score lower than those from the most-favored middle schools. In an article entitled " Être élève, être enseignant à l'ère numérique : entre avancées égalitaires et inégalités nouvelles" (Being a student, being a teacher in the digital age: between egalitarian advances and new inequalities), three researchers question, after many others, the role of digital technology in "creating inequalities in success and differences in career paths ". " Reasoned use of screens" and " digital break" at secondary schoolThe notion of thereasoned use of screens and technologies in schools has gradually become an integral part of the Ministry of Education's policy documents.In its Avis sur la contribution du numérique à la transmission des savoirs et à l'amélioration des pratiques pédagogiques (Opinion on the contribution of digital technology to the transmission of knowledge and the improvement of teaching practices), the Conseil supérieur des programmes (High Council for Programs), in 2022, called for "a critical and reasoned use of these means of access to information and communication (...) The aim is to inculcate the principles of a reasoned practice of information and communication tools".In January 2023, the Digital Strategy for Education 2023-2027 characterized the digital offering for the educational community as needing to be " reasoned, sustainable and inclusive".In December 2023, the Choc des savoirs presentation file reminded us that " digital technologies should be used in a reasoned way, with appropriate support".The Circulaire de rentrée 2024, for its part, stresses that " Schools must play a decisive role in the reasoned use of screens and the appropriation of a responsible digital culture. (...) This reliance on digital technology must be correlated with sensible use of screens".This recurring notion ofrational use refers to two issues, two "public problems", which are distinct but often intertwined in public debate:The long-standing issue of overexposure of children and young people to screens;The disruptive effects of telephones at school.In October 2023, the "education and digital" information mission led by the French National Assembly's Delegation for Children's Rights drew a harsh conclusion: "Digital education has not produced the expected results, and awareness of the risks to children in the digital space has made it clear that we need to educate children in digital terms before educating them with digital tools. The beginnings of digital education have thus seen the light of day, but it remains insufficient and needs to be translated into specific, systematic teaching of digital issues in the best interests of the child".Commission of experts on "children and screens" calls for " a coherent, controlled and evaluated strategy on the place of digital technology in schools".In its conclusions submitted on April 30, 2024, the commission commissioned by the President of the Republic to assess the impact of young people's exposure to screens deplores the fact that digital resources in schools "are still too frequently deployed without any structured dialogue with the educational world, without systematic training for teachers and parents, and without any exchange with pupils' parents".While "health and environmental issues plead in favor of limiting the use of screens (particularly individual screens) in schools, as well as limiting the use of screens in the home... The Commission did not reach a general consensus on the ideal level of mobilization of digital tools in terms of equipment and pedagogical uses".However, the ten members of the commission were able to agree on the need for greater consistency in digital matters: progressive exposure to screens for children and teenagers, "no screens in nursery school", "no individual equipment entrusted to children in elementary school", "no digital workspaces for pupils in elementary school".They also advocate the labeling of digital tools whose positive impact has been scientifically validated. " No large-scale deployment should take place without a systematic evaluation or impact study", and call for stricter supervision of the use of digital workspaces and the school life software Pronote, in the interests of protecting teenagers. Updates and notifications for students could be cut off between 7 p.m. and 7.30 a.m., for example.OECD: " The use of digital devices in the classroom has become a double-edged sword ".In 2024, the OECD published a report that examines the links between screens, academic performance and student well-being. It is based on data from the 2022 edition of PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment, and on questionnaires sent to 15-year-olds who have taken these tests.The survey revealed that 65% of OECD students reported being distracted by the use of digital devices during at least some mathematics lessons (59% in France). 59% of OECD students said they had been distracted by other students using phones, tablets or laptops during at least some math lessons."The use of digital devices in the classroom has become a double-edged sword. While these devices can broaden access to learning resources , "the temptation to wander off, to focus attention on non-academic activities or to explore the wealth of information their devices make available, can impact student concentration and achievement".The survey also raises questions about students' well-being. In France, for example, 43% of students say they feel nervous or anxious if they don't have their phone near them: a proportion comparable to the OECD average.The OECD concludes by questioning the effectiveness of provisions aimed at regulating the use of digital devices in educational establishments. "This kind of decision can be effective, although this depends to a large extent on how rigorously the ban is enforced. Even in schools where phones have been banned, 29% of students in OECD countries report using one several times a day on average, and 21% every day or almost every day.Back to school in 2024: experimenting with the digital break in secondary schoolsThe back-to-school circular for 2024 announces that a "digital break" will be tried out in volunteer middle schools in each département, so that the ban on cell phone use provided for by law is effective and total over the entire school day, including interstitial high-risk areas such as class changes, recess and the lunch break.This experiment has two objectives:improving the school climate, which can be adversely affected by the use of cell phones, making it possible for violence to develop (online harassment, dissemination of violent images);improved student performance, with phone use having a decisive effect on concentration in class and knowledge acquisition.At the start of the 2024 school year, 199 middle schools have volunteered to implement the system this school year, involving over 50,000 students. Full implementation is scheduled for January 1, 2025."Students don't spend eight hours a day in front of a computer or tablet in class...""The idea that schools are overrun with screens is false. Pupils don't spend eight hours a day in front of a computer or tablet in class", argues Audran Le Baron, Director of Digital Education at the French Ministry of Education, in Le Monde ." France is not Sweden", he assures us, referring to the policy of this Scandinavian country which, after having massively equipped its pupils with tablets, is now going backwards, judging screens to be responsible for the drop in academic standards. "The most common everyday reality is an interactive digital board on which educational resources are projected. By no means all pupils in France have an individual screen in the classroom".According to the Ministry of Education's statistics department, public elementary school will have four fixed computers for every 100 pupils, and nine mobile terminals by 2022; in public middle schools and high schools, these figures will reach an average of 33 fixed terminals for every 100 pupils, and 20 mobile terminals. As this equipment is the responsibility of local authorities, there are major disparities between regions: one elementary school may have difficulty in having a computer room worthy of the name, while in other communes, all pupils are equipped with a tablet that they can take home. National education and artificial intelligenceThe irruption of Gpt3 chat at the end of 2022 has sparked numerous initiatives in the world of education. Reservations and concerns too: will AI further reinforce inequalities? Will it widen the gap between good and bad students? Change the way they work? Make homework pointless? What can replace the time saved by AI? What about assessment and curricula?In July 2023, a senator's written question led the French Ministry of Education to clarify its position on generative AI: pedagogical interest, use by students, teacher training.In April 2023, following on from the work of the OECD and Unesco, the Ministry's Digital Education Department published an overview of the contributions made by research into artificial intelligence (AI) and education: areas of application, avenues for training and teaching, and prospects with the current trend towards generative AI and large-scale language models.For its part, Canopé, the operator of in-service teacher training, offered its first training days in 2023 on the theme "AIs, what assistance for pedagogues and pedagogy?"AI and "Knowledge ClashThe digital component of "Clash of Knowledge announced by Gabriel Attal, then Minister of Education, in December 2023, expressed strong expectations and hopes for AI: "Today, artificial intelligence tools can maintain a dialogue with students and enable them to progress orally thanks to voice recognition, but also offer them grammar, syntax or translation exercises adapted to their level. These tools can also be used to individualize progress in French or mathematics, with a method based on the playful repetition of exercises to master the fundamentals of grammar, conjugation, writing, arithmetic, geometry or logic. Based on the teachings of cognitive science, they offer students a flexibility of use that makes them all the more attractive, and complementary to the teacher's teaching ".While reminding us that "these technologies must be used in a reasoned manner and with appropriate support", the Minister announced that "France will be the first country in the world to make the use of an artificial intelligence application ( MIA) available free of charge to all pupils in a given age group to support their academic progress. It will be used outside class hours, and in addition to in-class support, to go deeper into fundamental concepts, in line with the national 2nd grade assessments "." Develop students' critical thinking about how AIs work and how they are used".The September 2024 back-to-school circular expresses a more measured posture towards AI, formulated in terms of challenges:"Create the conditions for collective appropriation of AI and its challenges, so as to define together the conditions in which it can be integrated into everyday classroom life.Encourage the reasoned use of AI from 5th grade onwards, under teacher supervision and in line with the development of curricula.Enable schools to play their part in media education and understanding the advantages and disadvantages of technology".While " every teacher can explore the uses of AI", the circular reminds us that, "in the interests of vigilance and reflexivity, a form of regular, methodical and deliberative questioning should be organized to develop students' critical thinking about how AI works and how it is used".Creating an AI cultureIn this circular, Education Minister Nicole Belloubet announces the forthcoming development of a national education strategy on artificial intelligence. In March 2023, she had asked the Conseil Supérieur des Programmes to take into account the contribution of artificial intelligence: " The programs will contribute, for each discipline, to creating a AI cultureculture, in particular through the reasoned use of the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence tools. For each year, they will identify the use cases where the contribution of AI represents a real added value, and the concepts that need to be understood".Within the DNE (Direction du numérique pour l'éducation), a Communauté de Réflexion en Éducation sur l'Intelligence Artificielle (CREIA) " aims to put innovation and artificial intelligence (AI) at the heart of pedagogical practices and educational thinking".The General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) plans to submit a report in February 2025 on "the use of artificial intelligence in schools, from an administrative and pedagogical point of view".As two computer science professors, Jean Ponce and Isabelle Ryl, observe in Le Monde, the attention generated by AI " is reminiscent of the media hype that greeted the arrival of MOOCs (for Massive Open Online Course) in 2012. These online courses were supposed to revolutionize higher education by enabling anyone to follow courses taught by the best - often American - professors from a distance, sometimes free of charge. Despite an upturn during the Covid-19 pandemic, the impact of MOOCs has proved relatively modest, and they are now just another educational tool, for example in the training of professionals. Digital skills among secondary school students: significant differences according to social backgroundIn May 2022, the Direction de l'Evaluation, de la Prospective et de la Performance (DEPP) measured students' mastery of digital skills at the end of secondary school for the first time.The new assessment distinguishes between different levels of performance. It is based on the Digital Competency Reference Framework (DCRF), with five domains (information and data, communication and collaboration, content creation, protection and security, digital environment) and sixteen competencies. This is in line with the European DIGCOMP reference framework.Nearly two out of three students (63.5%) have a satisfactory command of digital skills, enabling them to use digital tools in a reasoned, secure and eco-responsible way. In particular, they demonstrate know-how in using the advanced functions of various communication, word processing, image processing and presentation software programs.Among them, 10% are particularly at ease: they know how to process data using a spreadsheet-graph, are familiar with best practices for solving digital-related problems, and have a global vision of the impact of digital technology on society and the adaptations needed to minimize it.In contrast, 15% of students have only a limited grasp of these skills. For example, when communicating by e-mail, these students know how to identify the sender and how to behave respectfully, but they haven't mastered the conventions of e-mail writing, and they don't know how to guard against fraudulent e-mails.Read more : Digital skills among secondary school pupils: significant differences according to social background Educational inequalities: what role does digital technology play in creating inequalities in success, and how can they be reduced?"Stories about the 'end of school' have been multiplying over the past decade or so, with the idea of a digital turnaround calling for a reinvention of education (...) At the heart of the work, educational inequalities can be defined here (...) as differences in access deemed by society to be unjustified, condemnable, to educational goods. The aim is to understand the role of digital technology in creating inequalities in success and differences in career paths.The issue of educational digital inequalities is at the heart of the latest issue of Revue en Education (REE). The articles in this issue take complementary approaches, combining the experience of teachers with that of students and their parents. The authors draw in particular on the work of the e-FRAN IDÉE research program (Digital Interactions for Education and Teaching), which considers the transformation of educational digital uses, particularly in schools, from the perspective of reducing inequalities.Agnès Grimault-Leprince, Sophie Joffredo-Le Brun and Pascal Plantard, coordinators of this issue of REE, set out in their introduction to identify " areas for the development of digital pedagogical and training practices that can help reduce educational inequalities ". The dossier explores three notions that are " central to the understanding of socionumeric issues in education": technology appropriation, cooperation and empowerment.Read more : Educational inequalities: what role does digital technology play in creating inequalities in success and how can they be reduced? The "Numerics and Computer Science" specialization in the first and last years of secondary school suffers from a lack of appeal.In 2019, the reform of the baccalauréat has introduced a new specialization: "Numérique et Sciences Informatiques" (NSI), one of the 19 specializations offered in première and terminale.The NSI specialization (four hours per week in Première and six hours in Terminale) has succeeded the previous Computer Science and Digital Science specialization (two hours per week) introduced in 2012, which was only offered to Terminale S students. Today, this course is taught by teachers holding the CAPES NSI or the inter-university diploma "Enseigner l'informatique au lycée" ("Teaching computer science in high schools"), which will be introduced in 2019.At the start of the 2023 school year, 38,091 first-year students chose the "digital and computer sciences" course, representing 10.1% of all students (compared with 34,721 in 2020, representing 9%). NSI ranks 8th among the most popular courses chosen in Première. At the start of the 2023 school year, 17,612 students took the NSI specialization in their final year: 4.3% of all students (13,884 in 2020, 3.7%).Read more : The "Numerics and Computer Science" specialization in the first and last years of secondary school suffers from a lack of appeal A Forge for educational digital commonsThe Ministry's digital strategy for education devoted a chapter to "digital commons": " a set of digital resources produced and managed by a community. By their very nature, they are shared and collective ". In addition to a number of tools already available to teachers, such as the apps education.fr service platform (which provides collaboration and communication tools), the Éléa platform (which enables teachers to create and share open educational resources) and the "Magistère" platform (which provides teachers and all Ministry staff with an extensive catalog of resources for online training), the strategy announced the forthcoming availability of a "forge" that would enable teachers " to collaborate between peers and share computer code ".This forge, which is now operational, brings together both teacher-developers who upload their project code (such as PrimTux, MathALÉA, e-comBox or La Nuit du Code) and teachers who choose text or formatted text (Markdown, LaTeX, etc.) to edit and publish educational content".For this mathematics teacher of 36 years, "the in-depth work on educational digital commons " undertaken by the French Ministry of Education since 2020 is "one of the best ideas since computers first entered the school system. Communications from the administration on this subject do exist, but remain too confidential for my taste, or are disseminated in a very targeted way". After a brief description, he details a number of examples of use, most of them personal, which illustrate the (already current) contribution of existing educational digital commons to teaching, before proposing "historical and sociological landmarks to better understand the notion of digital commons". New research themes in digital educationThe French Ministry of Education's Digital Education Department has set up a research program to assess the impact of digital practices on teaching and learning, and to strengthen support for them. This program is organized around digital theme groups (GTNum), led by university laboratories or other public operators whose missions include research and/or scientific monitoring and mediation.The aim of these working groups (GTNum) is to produce knowledge and identify elements of strategic orientation and levers for action to support digital practices in the academy, and to propose forward-looking scenarios and concrete actions to support the digital transformation of education, based on research findings;For the period 2024-2027, the Digital Department plans to create new digital theme groups around the following topics:Critical thinking, IME and digital (contributions and risks associated with generative AI (text, photos, videos, voice,...), attention grabbing, literacy of data, algorithms and AI.Generative AI, pedagogical engineering and management: ethical and legal issues, evolution of technologies and practices, assistance for teachers, trainers and supervisory staff.Generative AI, creative activities and practices: ethical and legal issues, intellectual, cultural and artistic practices.Evaluating and supporting AI appropriation processes in a pedagogical system: sharing practices and training methods, scientific, pedagogical and didactic issues across disciplines.E-sport workshops in secondary schools.Digital technology and mathematics teaching and learning (core subjects in CP and CE1, fractions and decimal numbers in 6e-5e): didactic developments, production and sharing of resources, student assessment.Certification, micro-certification: international overview, school and university practices, prospects.Education and training for digital citizenship: issues, practices, digital transition and ecological transition.Cybersecurity and education: awareness and acculturation of staff and learners, governance, training methods, challenges and risk management.GTnum publications are available online in the Hypotheses "Education, digital and research" notebook.PISA 2025 to focus on learning in the digital worldThe PISA 2025 "Learning in the Digital World" assessment will focus on two essential skills for learning with technology:self-regulated learning, which refers to the monitoring and control of metacognitive, cognitive, behavioural, motivational and affective processes during learning;Computing and scientific research practices, which refer to the ability to use digital tools to explore systems, represent ideas and solve problems using computational logic.The results should be available in December 2027.

    • Data

    • Inclusion

    • Citizenship

    • Commons

    Published on 04/11/24

    [Feature] Back to school 2023: what strategy for digital education?

    As every year, the back-to-school circular from the French Minister of Education describes the priorities and new features that will come into effect from September onwards: reinforcement of media and information education, which will include " knowledge of rights and duties in the digital space and of the risks linked in particular to the use of social networks ", and "development of digital skills (...) with the roll-out of "Pix sixième" to all collèges".In addition, 2023 will see the implementation of the Digital Strategy for Education 2023-2027, published last January. This strategy has since been translated into a technical doctrine, based on a platform approach.With a view to reinforcing teacher training, a specific Pix, called " Pix+ Édu ", has been tested in a number of regions to prepare for the future introduction of digital skills certification for teachers.Faced with the challenges of digital education, the French Ministry of Education plans to extend the digital awareness certificate ("Pix 6e") for 6th graders throughout France.With the advent of portable devices, high-speed Internet access and e-learning platforms, the question arises as to the future of computer rooms. Educational communities and local authorities (responsible for the digital equipment of schools) are faced with a number of challenges: the high cost and maintenance of computer rooms, limited mobility for students and teachers, changes in learning methods, the integration of technology into ordinary classrooms... Digital strategy for education 2023-2027In January 2023, the French Ministry of Education released a digital strategy for education 2023-2027. The ambition of this document is to define the strategic vision of digital for education in France, for the period 2023-2027 "It aims to get the players to agree on a common vision, on unprecedented transformations, which will be to lead and succeed together."In particular, the authors of the strategy note that "unequal access to digital technology " This can create difficulties for people who are digitally excluded or who have great difficulty accessing it. "This can create difficulties for people who are digitally excluded or who have great difficulty accessing it. (...) These difficulties of access to digital technology create inequalities in learning and place the issues of digital inclusion and equal access to the public digital education service at the forefront".They also point to " a degraded user experience ". " Teachers, students, families or all education staff report difficulties in using the digital tools offered by the education ecosystem: complex and heterogeneous interfaces, unattractive, sometimes far removed from standards, unequally accessible and hardly adapted to mobility, lack of portability, data requiring multiple re-entries, connection breaks between tools, insufficient performance (...) These obstacles are all the more difficult for users to overcome as they are offered a significant proliferation of digital tools and resources without their uses being clarified, nor their access facilitated".The Digital Education Strategy for 2023-2027 aims to address several challenges:Strengthen national and local cooperation between education players, around pedagogical projects mobilizing digital technology where relevant;Developing students' digital skills;Provide teachers with a clear offer, combining digital tools and resources to put digital technology at the service of student success;Develop the robustness, security, accessibility, quality and eco-responsibility of the Ministry's IT tools, to simplify the work of its employees and thus enhance the quality of the service provided. A 4-pronged strategyThe strategy is based on 4 axes, each with several key actions.An ecosystem committed to a shared public policy:Strengthen governance of digital education at national and local levels ;Share indicators for steering and evaluation purposes ;Define typical individual student equipment (middle and high school);Digital education that develops citizenship and digital skills;Ensure the acquisition of digital skills throughout the school career ;Enable students to become informed citizens in the digital age.An educational community supported by a reasoned, sustainable and inclusive digital offering:Supporting the development of digital commons;Simplify access to digital services by creating a "resource account";Putting digital technology at the service of inclusive schools;Better training for educational teams in digital teaching methods.Supporting teachers in digital education:Organize digital educational services around an interoperable platform ;Mobilizing data for the school.New rules for a ministerial information system at the service of its usersAccelerating digital transformation;Increase efficiency by expanding and supporting pooling;Improve fluidity and quality by integrating the principles of agility and user experience;Developing eco-responsibility.To achieve all these objectives, the Ministry of Education intends to renew its partnership with local authorities, which "provide material resources such as infrastructure and terminals, install and maintain them, and increasingly finance teaching resources ". This partnership will have to " take account of technological developments, notably the omnipresence of cloud-hosted solutions, hardware (smartphones, tablets, laptops, interactive and immersive media), and the emergence of ENTs (digital workspaces). We also need to understand the "out-of-school" dimension of digital education. This new partnership needs to be forged at different levels - academies and regions, academic departments and départements, inter-municipalities, basins and communes". Supporting the development of digital commonsThe digital strategy devotes a chapter to the "digital commons". By this it means "a set of digital resources produced and managed by a community. By their very nature, they are shared and collective". It mentions several tools available to teachers:The apps education.fr service platform, which provides collaboration and communication tools such as " virtual classrooms " and video-agents, as well as file-sharing and video-publishing tools hosted on French infrastructures.The Éléa platform, based on open-source Moodle software, which enables teachers to create and share open educational resources and scripted digital learning paths for their students.The "Magistère" platform, which provides teachers and all Ministry staff with a wide catalog of online training resources."This first version of the national offering will be enhanced according to a roadmap agreed with all players, local authorities and EdTech companies."Teachers, particularly at NSI or SNT, are waiting for a "forge" that would enable them to collaborate with peers and share computer code. The Ministry has announced the availability of a forge that is technologically sovereign and shared nationwide. A technical doctrine for digital educationFollowing on from the strategy, in May 2023 the French Ministry of Education published a " technical doctrine for digital education ", "to establish a framework of common architecture and rules, aimed at providing users with a legible and structured set of simply accessible and interoperable educational digital services".Towards an open, interoperable ecosystemThis technical doctrine takes into account the accelerated growth in the use of digital educational services in the 1st and 2nd degrees since 2020. "More and more are being used, not only for administrative purposes and to keep track of schooling, but also for pedagogical activities and to implement educational missions. The logical corollary is a consequent increase in the use of services, which requires both perfect control of data and an open, interoperable ecosystem".A platform logicThe idea is for the State to guarantee " every player in education equal access to and simple use of digital services in a secure, open and interoperable ecosystem, for the purposes of implementing learning within the framework of the programs and skills repositories of the Ministry of National Education ". To this end, "digital education must be developed according to a platform logic, in the sense of a set of players respecting an architecture framework and common rules and standards, to provide users with a legible and structured set of services that are easily accessible and interoperable (...).) The public education service thus gains in agility, enabling users and companies in the digital education industry to benefit from innovative services, but also in sovereignty, by excluding any solution that does not respect the rules laid down, particularly in terms of ethics and data protection".Lastly, the technical doctrine refers to three standards currently being drawn up, dedicated to interoperability, security and digital responsibility requirements, which are intended to be enforceable by law". Pix+ Édu: towards certification of teachers' digital skillsAlmost all education staff use digital technology to prepare their lessons ( Profetic 2018 survey).Only 16% of primary school teachers and 29% of secondary school teachers feel well or very well prepared for its use in their initial training(Cnesco 2021 study).With a view to strengthening teacher training, a specific Pix, called " Pix+ Édu ", has been tested in a few territories to prepare for the future introduction of the Pix+ EDU certification of teachers' digital skills.This self-assessment course enables teachers to take stock of their level of mastery of digital skills for teaching, and to access online training resources.Pix+ Édu covers transversal and professional digital skills, differentiated for 1st and 2nd grade. It takes the form of questions, with recommended tutorials. A digital awareness certificate starting in 6th gradeFaced with the challenges of digital education and, in particular, to raise awareness of the fight against cyberbullying, hate speech and illicit online content, the French Ministry of Education plans to extend the digital awareness certificate to all 6th graders.Nearly 110 volunteer middle schools experimented with it during the 2022-23 school year.In 2023-2024, " Pix 6e " will be extended to all middle schools.Pix 6ème gives rise to a certificate guaranteeing that pupils have benefited from this awareness-raising program. It includes a specific "protection and safety" pathway, which targets 4 skills:securing the digital environment ;protect personal data and privacy ;protecting health, well-being and the environment;prevent cyberbullying.Since the 2021-2022 school year, Pix has been generalized from the 5th grade onwards, with compulsory digital skills certification for students in 3e at collège and Terminale at lycée général, technologique et professionnel.

    • Inclusion

    • Citizenship

    Published on 05/09/23

    [File] Digital education at the start of the 2022 school year: an overview of current projects and new initiatives

    ForewordAs every year, the back-to-school circular of the Minister of National Education describes the priorities and new features that will come into effect in September. With regard to digital education, the circular states that each school or institution must "update the educational continuity plans developed and implemented since 2020" . It announces, in this regard, that a " permanent and sovereign solution of virtual classrooms accessible to all teachers will now be guaranteed throughout the year". "Faced with the challenge for our students to understand the digital world, and in particular to know how to analyze, sort, and distinguish between information that everyone can now be the sender as well as the receiver ", the circular provides for strengthening the effort in media and information education: "All teachers, especially those in charge of documentation, who are the pivotal point in secondary education, must sensitize and train students in this necessary distance, the first quality of an informed citizen. In this spirit, an experiment will be implemented in the sixth grade as of next fall via a digital awareness certificate.The health crisis and the implementation of educational continuity have made it necessary to set up a "basic digital foundation for schools, colleges and high schools". Within the framework of a "partners' committee" associating representatives of associations representing local authorities and the State "in the respect of the competences of each one", three guidelines for basic digital equipment in schools, colleges and high schools were discussed and then made public.This fall, we have a first evaluation of the program " Digital educational territories (TNE), launched in 2020, which should allow for large-scale testing of the implementation of educational continuity.As part of the " Numérique Inclusif, Numérique Éducatif" program launched in June 2021, 80 selected projects support the fight against digital and educational divides.As part of France 2030 (which takes over from the stimulus plan), a considerable investment effort (594 million euros) is devoted to the "Education and Digital" acceleration strategy. Contents State and local authorities agree on digital equipment bases for schools, colleges and high schools Digital education and inclusion: 80 projects to "reshuffle the deck What lessons can be learned from the "digital education territories" experiment? France 2030's education and digital strategy Towards a generalization of media and information literacy in schools The General Assembly on Digital Education, one year later, what is the interim assessment? "What do we know today about the place and use of digital in schools?" State and local authorities agree on digital equipment bases for schools, colleges and high schools Despite significant combined financial efforts, the deployment of the digital education public service has been very disparate and uneven across the country. " To remedy the persistent inequalities in access to the public digital service," the Cour des Comptes in its July 2019 report To remedy the persistent inequalities in access to digital public services," the Cour des Comptes recommended "providing schools, colleges and high schools with a basic digital foundation.The health crisis and the implementation of educational continuity have made it necessary to set up a "basic digital base for schools, colleges and high schools".Within the framework of a "partners' committee" associating representatives of associations representing local authorities and the State, "while respecting the competences of each", three guidelines for basic digital equipment in schools, middle schools and high schools were discussed and then made public.These guidelines detail, for each type of establishment (school, college and high school) a basic foundation: basic classroom equipment: a group viewing system and a classroom workstation; mobile equipment that can be shared for each school pack of touchscreen tablets (middle and high schools); equipment allowing the hybridization of courses in schools (high schools); equipment for "specific" classrooms (middle and high schools); the equipment of the establishment (documentation and information center, multimedia room, space for a media studio, duty room, teachers' room, "free" Internet access points for students (middle and high schools); support and training for teachers and educational teams in the use of new materials; the computer network ; access to the internet. These guidelines " are intended to help local authorities make their investments according to the level of equipment expected in their schools, colleges and high schools. They are not intended to be prescriptive, but rather to serve as a reference that can be adapted to the educational projects of the schools and the realities of the field. It is understood that the State, in its own areas of competence, will ensure, in particular, the training of teachers in the pedagogical uses of, and through, digital technology. Digital education and inclusion: 80 projects to "reshuffle the educational deckThe call for projects "Numérique Inclusif, Numérique Éducatif" (Inclusive Digital, Educational Digital) was launched by the Banque des Territoires in June 2021 to support projects to fight against these two divides: digital and educational. After two selection rounds, one in the fall of 2021 and the second in the spring of 2022, the 80 selected projects now cover the entire country.80 selected projectsTwo-thirds of the selected projects are led by associations, and a quarter by EdTech companies and local authorities. When the SSE structures are not themselves carriers of these projects, they are most of the time partners.40% of the target audiences are students, including 20% of disadvantaged youth. Parents and education professionals represent 19% and 16% of the target audiences respectively.In addition to providing financial support for these projects, the Banque des Territoires is also setting up a system of close support for the winners, which aims to assist the projects in their transition to a larger scale.Three convictions at the origin of the call for projectsThe Banque des Territoires emphasizes three beliefs that underlie this scheme. The first is that " the solutions already exist and, above all, that they come from the territories. France stands out because of the heterogeneity of its territory, and therefore the plurality of its challenges. It is often useless, or even counterproductive, to model a solution on a territory. The second is that "the players in the ecosystem are already working together. (...) . The players want to pool and create synergies, to have a better visibility of what exists so as not to reinvent but rather to act in a complementary manner. The call for projects was also intended to bring the players together and have them talk to each other - whether it be to carry out projects together or to share their good practices. The third is that " without working on the issues of inclusion, it is not possible to build effective and sustainable educational solutions. What lessons can be learned from the experimentation of the "educational digital territories" for pedagogical continuity?The program " Educational digital territories" program (TNE), launched in 2020 by the Ministry of National Education and the General Secretariat for Investment (SGPI) and implemented by the Banque des Territoires with partner local authorities, in association with the Réseau Canopé and the GIP Trousse à Projets, was intended to allow for large-scale testing of the implementation of educational continuity, the need for which had been revealed by the COVID-19 health crisis.The TNE evaluation report draws the first lessons from the experiments conducted in the departments of Aisne and Val-d'Oise during the 2020-2021 school year.Read more France 2030's education and digital strategyFrance 2030 is in line with the France Recovery Plan. This 30 billion euro investment plan is designed to make up for France's lag in certain historical sectors. It also aims to create new industrial and technological sectors.Endowed with 594 million euros as part of France 2030, the "Education and Digital" acceleration strategy must meet two imperatives: strengthen the skills and competencies needed to prepare for lifelong learning foster the development of a high-performance French digital education ecosystem It has several objectives: Increasing the efficiency of our education system by strengthening guidance tools, skills portfolios, labelled educational resources, assistance in personalising courses, and actions to reduce digital divides, strengthening the "Education and Digital" acceleration strategy. Transforming and strengthening the EdTech economy: "EdTech (Educational technology) represents a dynamic economic sector with a strong competitive edge in which major countries are investing massively (...) The health crisis has confirmed the need for many players to scale up to meet future demand. Provide a framework that preserves sovereignty and the ability to influence: "Beyond the immediate economic impact for French EdTech, the use of foreign digital solutions is synonymous with data capture. The protection of personal data and the sovereignty of our national education system are essential issues that must be preserved with sustainable and secure solutions. Actions launchedA "Priority Equipment and Research Program" (PEPR) for "Education and Digital Technology" with a budget of €77 million over 10 years will make it possible to create an educational data warehouse (Education Data Hub) capable of contributing to the data-driven management of schools and academies, as well as to the fine-tuning of teaching based on learning records and EdTech for existing and future resourcesDemonstrators that will test, accelerate and identify best practices to accelerate the use of digital in education: Territorial digital demonstrators" have been deployed for three years in schools (12 Educational Digital Territories) and in higher education (17 demonstrators covering 70 French higher education establishments) Demonstrators common to both school and higher education, such as Avenir(s) with a budget of €30 million, piloted by the ONISEP and the Savoie-Mont-Blanc University Educational solutions based on digital tools through Educational Challenges and Innovation Partnerships in Artificial Intelligence, or support for the deployment of E-FRAN projects. Initial and ongoing training in digital technology for teachers and staff who are accompanying the educational transformation with innovative training courses as part of the Skills and Professions of the Future call. Towards a generalization of media and information literacy in schoolsInscribed in the July 8, 2013 orientation and programming law, included in the Common Base of Knowledge and Skills and Culture in 2015, media and information literacy (MIE) has officially entered as such in the new National Education programs, after having long camped in its margins.In a analysis notethe Conseil national d'évaluation du système scolaire (Cnesco) observed, however, that the educational institution does not seem to " fully support young people in a changing information universe marked by strong debates around social networks and the infoxes that are propagated there. Thus, media education, as an object of study, is only addressed in half of the middle and high schools. This seems to be limited, most often, to education through the media (using information supports such as newspaper articles or television documentaries), even if, at school, students largely consider that moral and civic education courses (EMC) allow them to better understand current events.The Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports announces new initiatives to strengthen and generalize media and information literacy.Read more The General Assembly on Digital Education, one year later, what is the interim assessment?The Ministry of Education organized on November 4 and 5, 2020 the "Etats Généraux du Numérique pour l'éducation" (EGNé).These Estates General had been prepared in three stages: Development of feedback (from lockdown to end of regular school year); Organization of an online consultation (from mid-June to mid-September); States General in the territories (mid-September to mid-October). The digital education strategy defined at the end of the Etats généraux was based on three pillars: training, equipping and tools.Read more [Feature] "What do we know today about the place and use of digital in schools?"The Department of Evaluation, Forecasting and Performance (DEPP) of the Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports has undertaken to take stock of "what is known today about the place and use of digital technology in schools ".This summary is based on a decade of studies, on recent publications by the DEPP and on evaluations of several schemes set up to develop the role of digital technology in education (D'COL, the Collèges connectés, and more recently the Plan numérique).Read more

    • Inclusion

    • Innovation

    Published on 15/09/22

    Pix parents: a new tool for digital parenting

    Since 2021, all French secondary school students have been certifying their digital skills with Pix.Pix is now turning its attention to parents, with the launch of new themed courses linked to digital parenting: short modules to assess your skills in a variety of situations, and to tackle subjects such as parental control, social networks, cyberbullying prevention, or even your children's orientation with Parcoursup, for example.On the Pix Parents site, seven thematic paths have been put online for the time being, pending further developments:Digital living at home;My child plays video games, how can I support him?Discovering parental control ;Social networks, understanding and setting them up for my child ;Responding to cyberbullying ;Helping my child with online research ;Digital technology and schools.To help everyone learn at their own pace, questions are adapted in real time to each parent's level, thanks to an adaptive algorithm.These new courses for parents were created in collaboration between Pix and experts in the fields of childhood and digital technology. As well as contributing to the design of the courses, the partners also participated in the creation and sharing of resources accessible at the end of each test.These courses are based on a skills repository developed for digital mediation professionals, offering them a precise, structured vision of the skills essential to digital parenting.Digital technology, a new indicator of family fragility"At a time when schools are experimenting with cell phone bans, when the law is imposing parental control tools, and when bans are being imposed on digital technology, is it possible to bring peace to the use of digital technology in our society?" asks Bruno Devauchelle, author of Éduquer avec le numérique, on the Café Pédagogique website."Pix Parents is good news," adds Bruno Devauchelle , "if everyone takes it on board in their own context, without neglecting the difficult lives of many families. (...) The school, as a world apart, cannot act beyond its physical and institutional limits. However, it can provide support, via the children and also through real work on "co-education" as close as possible to everyday realities. Digital technology is a new revelation of family fragility, the importance of which must not be overlooked".

    • Inclusion

    • Citizenship

    Published on 16/12/24

    [Feature] How is digital technology transforming the school-family relationship?

    ForewordThe role and place of parents in schools is a recurring theme in education policy. For a long time, families were poorly integrated into the day-to-day life of schools, especially at secondary level. Parents had little access to schools. School-family relations were based on formal meetings, generally at the start of the school year, and more rarely on interim or end-of-year reviews. The flow of information was largely one-way, with the school dictating the pace and methods of communication. The school transmitted information (grades, behavior, summonses, orientation, etc.) via paper media such as notebooks, newsletters or letters. The flow of information was predominantly one-way, with the school dictating the pace and methods(IGESR, 2021).Digital technology, with the deployment of digital workspaces (ENT) in the 2000s, and the concomitant rollout of school life software, has profoundly transformed school-family relations, both in terms of pace and methods. Parents now have direct access to course content, diaries, grades, homework and absences. In 2020, the health crisis marked an important turning point in the use of ENT to ensure pedagogical continuity.While the digitization of the school-family relationship could tend to strengthen parental capacity to support homework, it should be noted that this is not without consequences: the possibility for parents to monitor schoolwork on a daily basis can increase pressure at school, with closer supervision, which is not always experienced positively by students, particularly those in difficulty or dropping out.Teachers, for their part, may " feel that their work is being interfered with because of the access parents and their hierarchy have to some of their course content", observed the Cnesco in 2020. " They also feel a form of interference in their personal lives because of messaging, and they fear too much solicitation from students and/or parents".In April 2024, the General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGÉSR) was asked to analyze the impact of digital technology on relations between schools and families. In its report, the Inspectorate looks back at the deployment of ENTs, in conjunction with school life software such as Pronote. The Inspectorate's assessment of ENT is fairly positive. However, it is concerned about the quasi-monopolistic position of a private publisher in the school life software market. This dominant position " could undermine the Ministry's efforts to regulate digital services, particularly in conjunction with private players". It also identifies a whole series of difficulties resulting from the multiplicity of players (Ministry, local authorities, private publishers) and their difficulty in coordinating themselves : "functional overlaps between certain services, the use of multiple identifiers, a source of confusion for families and pupils, but also additional assistance work on the part of educational staff".The inspectorate warns of the intensive use of ENT and school life software, particularly outside school hours. It recommends the implementation of a right to disconnect (no new publications between 8pm and 7am, or during weekends and vacations).Pointing out that the families furthest away from digital technology have difficulty accessing or understanding ENT, the inspectorate recommends mobilizing departmental councils, associations, digital advisors and France Services, as well as family allowance funds, as part of an "educational alliance", to maintain and develop this support in all regions.Finally, it concludes with 16 measures to restore coherence to the development of ENT and school life software, to remove obstacles to their use, to support parents who are far removed from digital technology, and to correct the sometimes stressful use of these tools. 99% of public high schools, 89% of public middle schools and 62% of public schools offer an ENT.The first digital workspaces (ENT) saw the light of day in the early 2000s, under the impetus of the French Ministry of Education.ENTs centralize numerous services for students, parents, teachers and administrators:access to teaching resources (courses, exercises, documents, etc.) ;communication tools (messaging, forums, videoconferencing, etc.) ;administrative management (student enrolment, canteen payments, etc.) ;individual student monitoring (absences, behavior, grades and report cards).ENTs are funded by the départements for collèges, and by the regions for lycées. In schools, organization and funding vary from region to region. An ENT market has thus emerged, with several publishers offering solutions in line with a master plan (SDET). The relatively abundant range of ENT solutions offered by different publishers has gradually become concentrated around four vendors, who now share the bulk of the ENT market.By the start of the 2024 school year, 99% of public lycées, 89% of public collèges and 62% of public schools will offer an ENT.92% of secondary school students and 64% of primary school students and their parents have access to an ENT.According to the IGESR, "ENTs are now essential for communicating with families".The report by the General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) gives a rather positive assessment of ENTs: "These tools played a decisive role during the health crisis in ensuring educational continuity. (...) In primary schools, the first uses of ENTs were put in place during the crisis, without a regulated framework, and most subsequently confirmed their use with the deployment of a qualified ENT solution. Videoconferencing services, which were rarely found in ENTs before the health crisis, have since been used by schools to offer conferences or hybrid meetings. Videoconferencing, also democratized by the widespread use of teleworking in society, has become a means used by some school heads to ensure greater participation by parents in various information or awareness-raising meetings (initially created in 2003 with a pedagogical objective), and has led to an intensification of usage around a shared objective: ensuring pedagogical continuity. Once the health crisis had passed, the ENT remained an integral part of the educational landscape, and its use did not decline, but actually increased."ENTs are now indispensable in the life of schools and for communication with families, and are recognized as such. The critical view that may be taken of them, and more generally of the relationship with digital technology and screens, does not call into question their legitimacy, but rather the place they should be given in the service of a pedagogical and educational project. What's more, perfecting the tool is a clearly identified asset, which can be put to good use in the event of future crises."Compared to other communication vectors (social networks, private messaging) often used by staff, parents and students, for convenience, or by reflex, and without measuring the risks, the ENT also offers, in the opinion of those heard, a trusted, secure environment that meets the requirements of the RGPD and is the subject of contractualization between the players based on protective specifications." The emergence of a dominant player in the digital school-family relationshipWhile the regions and départements were concentrating their efforts and funding on deploying ENTs, designed primarily as a portal, a unified entry point giving access to a wide range of services, school heads were obtaining timetabling software from other publishers (such as Index Education), which was supplied neither by the ENT publishers nor by the Ministry.By extending the functionalities of EDT software to include school life management (absences, late arrivals, report cards) and integrating them into ENTs (with the agreement of local authorities), school life software publishers (first and foremost Pronote, developed by Index Education) have gained a foothold in the ENT market. Software has gradually become the main vehicle for school-family relations, eclipsing the other services offered by ENTs."Two publishers, Index Éducation and Aplim, have a majority, if not a virtual monopoly, of the school life software market, which is in fact a platform accessible in web mode and via a mobile application".Back in 2020, the Cour des Comptes (French National Audit Office) expressed concern about the growing power of Index Education: " The predominance of a private publisher creates a strong relationship of dependence between this company and schools, each of which is a client of the same software solution. In addition to the financial aspects, there is the question of access to and protection of student data.This concern was echoed by the IGESR in 2025: " Pronote, with its quasi-monopolistic position as a school life software, runs the risk of becoming the dominant player in the digital relationship between schools and families".In particular, the IGESR points to a number of pricing practices.Index Education reportedly "imposes an interoperability fee on schools for the exchange of data from its software when an ENT other than its own solution is implemented within the school, with additional costs deemed significant by schools".SMS text messaging has become an increasingly popular way for schools to reach families, notably to notify parents of a pupil's absence (individual SMS), to remind parents of important meetings or to communicate in emergency or crisis situations (SMS to all or some parents). According to the IGESR, Index Education's SMS rates are " almost 60% more expensive than the rates available to the Ministry for SMS broadcasting (...) Lower-cost alternatives exist, but cannot be directly coupled with Pronote ". The IGESR adds that " due to the high cost of SMS and its impact on the school budget , particularly in secondary schools, some school heads have severely restricted or abandoned the use of SMS"." This central role," concludes the IGESR, " may undermine the Ministry's efforts to regulate digital services, particularly in relation to private players. In addition, certain data entered by schools in EDT and Pronote software are necessary for the operation of ENTs in secondary schools. These include pedagogical organization, timetables and information for the news dashboard. The Ministry would do well to establish a framework for all players (local authorities, publishers, school heads) that defines data circulation, promotes interoperability and is enforceable". An abundance of tools, a need for coherenceIn 2023, when it published its digital strategy for education, the French Ministry of Education drew up an assessment of the difficulties encountered in using the digital tools offered by the education ecosystem: " complex and heterogeneous interfaces, unattractive, sometimes far removed from standards, unequally accessible and hardly adapted to mobility, a lack of data portability requiring multiple re-entries, connection breaks between tools, insufficient performance, etc. This situation (... ) translates directly into the quality of service offered, with a digital offering fragmented between multiple portals or online services operated by the State (Scolarité services portal, etc.), the various levels of government (Ministry of Education, Ministry of Education, etc.) and the different levels of the education system. This situation (...) is directly reflected in the quality of the service offered, with a digital offering split between multiple portals or online services operated by the State (Scolarité services portal), the various levels of local authorities and different public and private operators (school life software in particular). This multiplicity of tools creates a labyrinthine and uncertain path, to the detriment of usage, confidence and freedom of choice for certain digital resources. We need to work together to remove these obstacles.To structure this abundant offering, the Ministry of Education was counting on the deployment of unified authentication via ÉduConnect (with the objective of 100% of students using their ÉduConnect identity to access digital educational tools and resources by the start of the 2026 school year.Two years later, the IGESR updated this diagnosis, identifying a whole series of difficulties resulting from the multiplicity of players (ministry, local authorities, private publishers) and their difficulty in coordinating their efforts."The deployment of ENT, without a national master plan, may have caused perplexity and confusion. confusion for parents, who are sometimes obliged to manage two or three different ENTs depending on their children's level of schooling"."Sometimes confusing user paths Historically, ENT was accessed via a browser from a computer, but since 2010 the emergence of mobile uses, and more recently mobile applications, has led to a fragmentation that is difficult for players to follow. The cohabitation of the ENT mobile application and the Pronote application can generate flows of communications, information and requests in one or other of the applications, or in both. This juxtaposition of two mobile applications has caused ENT to lose its role as an aggregator, providing access to different services from a single point"." Functional overlaps between certain servicesSome schools have tried to solve this problem by communicating exclusively with parents via Pronote. While some schools have tried to solve this problem by communicating exclusively with parents via Pronote, they have done so by foregoing certain essential functions, such as the ENT messaging system, which is generally considered to be more efficient, particularly for sending attachments"." the use of multiple identifiers, a source of confusion for families and students but also an additional workload for educational staff. (...) The implementation of EduConnect in an ENT is in the hands of local authorities or publishers. However, some local authorities wish to maintain their own ENT identity, while some schools decide not to implement the local authority's ENT, even though it is linked to EduConnect, and deploy Pronote alone. In all cases, the decision not to link the school's digital services to the EduConnect identity deprives parents and students of simplified, secure access to all services".The IGESR calls for "tools to be made consistent (...) around a simplified user path that brings together the various services that make up an ENT, including those for school life and national education teleservices, so as to facilitate access. The DGESCO, the DNE, the academic regions and local authorities must ensure that the user path and services are coherent, in association with family representatives and publishers/integrators".EduConnect is one of the levers of this coherence: "A single identity is needed for parents and students to access all services. EduConnect must be deployed by all ENT projects in public schools and educational establishments. Academic regions must work with local authorities to achieve this. Parents away from the digital world: "Still not enough answers".The deployment of ENT was confronted very early on with the case of the families furthest away from digital technology. " The health crisis highlighted the importance of "everyday inequalities" in digital technology: quality of connections and their constraints (such as blocked packages), absence or low quality of equipment, intra-family sharing of equipment, poor mastery of communication tools with teachers"(Digital Strategy for Education).It seems "contradictory and problematic that parents who most often need help for their children cannot access the information intended for them because of the infrastructure and the existence of a digital divide between school and home" observed the CNESCO in 2020.The IGESR, for its part, notes "a significant digital divide, particularly marked in REP, REP+ and vocational high schools, and overall in schools whose social position index (IPS62) is low and below the national average ... Socio-economic fragility can be coupled with linguistic and cultural fragility. This is the case for some allophone families, who are more exposed to this double fragility, which can exacerbate their numerical insecurity"."Faced with such situations (which can vary in severity depending on the school), schools, local authorities and associations have all tried to find solutions. The IGESR lists a large number of local initiatives (equipment grants, information or mediation meetings, support for parents) as well as national ones, such as the Digital Kit. The inspectorate draws lessons from the Territoires numériques éducatifs (TNE) policy implemented since 2021 in a dozen départements. "The TNEs demonstrated the difficulty of reaching and raising awareness among parents, and the pitfalls encountered when deploying the digital parenting component. But this deployment (with an overall budget of €7 million) has enabled us to experiment with and develop model practices and organizations."As part of an "educational alliance", the mission recommends mobilizing departmental councils, associations (Ligue de l'enseignement, CEMEA, family associations), digital advisors and France Services, as well as family allowance funds, to maintain and develop this support in all regions."In view of the multiple difficulties encountered by families furthest from digital resources and skills, the IGESR calls for " interministerial governance of support for digital parenting, to which the Ministry of Education must contribute on the school and educational side (...) This policy could be led by the ministry in charge of the family, and rely on the coordination of a range of contributors for greater coherence and effectiveness". The right to disconnectDespite the widely-acknowledged benefits of ENT, the IGESR mission was alerted by numerous testimonials "to the untimely and sometimes inappropriate use of the tools, generating stress on all sides and showing less respect not only for the privacy to which everyone aspires, but also for the preservation of health, which is necessary for everyone".This is the case, for example, when parents find out about grades at the same time as pupils, sometimes even before the latter have received a correction or handed in their copy. This can lead to tensions within the family, especially when the mark is perceived as unsatisfactory and the student finds it difficult to explain the criteria used to assess it.It's mainly the question of the right to disconnect that emerges. Some teachers include assignments in their textbooks that have not been indicated in class, and may appear in the evening for the following day, at the weekend for Monday, or in the middle of school vacations. On the other hand, national education staff would also like to see a framework for evening and weekend requests from parents and pupils.Except in cases of extreme urgency, the report recommends that digital tools be set up so that updates and notifications are interrupted after 7 p.m. and resumed at 70:30 the next morning, and that notifications are not received during school vacations. Pix parents: a new tool for digital parentingSince 2021, all French secondary school students have been certifying their digital skills with Pix.Pix is now turning its attention to parents, with the launch of new themed courses on digital parenting: short modules to assess your skills in a variety of situations, and to tackle subjects such as parental control, social networks, cyberbullying prevention, or even your children's orientation with ParcourSup, for example. Nine thematic courses are now available online.Read more : Pix parents: a new tool for digital parenting

    • Inclusion

    • Citizenship

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    Published on 02/09/25

[Feature] Back to school 2025: teaching and learning in the age of AI and digital control

Foreword

Two subjects dominate the educational digital news this autumn: the framework for digital use in schools, with, in particular, the generalization of the "digital break" in secondary schools (renamed "laptop break"), and the appropriation of artificial intelligence by the education system. The French Ministry of Education has published a framework for the use of artificial intelligence in education. In February 2025, it announced the development of a sovereign AI to support teachers in their day-to-day practices, and the creation of a Pix course dedicated to artificial intelligence for 2nd level students.

By ceasing to fund paper textbooks and reducing its budget for traditional digital textbooks, in favor of content designed specifically for the Pearltrees digital platform, the Ile-de-France region has reignited the debate on the use of digital and traditional textbooks, their funding and governance: a debate that runs through and divides the educational community.

The debate on digital education was also marked by the publication of three reports:

  • The Cour des Comptes (French National Audit Office) has taken a look atprimary education in 2025. It devotes a chapter of its report to the deployment of digital technology. In it, the Cour des Comptes looks back at school equipment policies and the systems put in place. " Despite all these initiatives, which aim to define a concerted strategy between the State and local authorities, and which demonstrate a concern for the appropriation of resources by teachers, many shortcomings are apparent in the development of digital technology in primary education ".
  • In its report on the use of digital technology in school-family relations, the General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) gives a rather positive assessment of digital workspaces (ENT). It is concerned, however, about the quasi-monopolistic position of a private publisher in the school life software market. The inspectorate warns of the intensive use of ENTs and school life software, particularly outside school hours. It recommends the implementation of a right to disconnect (no new publications between 8pm and 7am, nor during weekends and vacations). At a time when families who are the furthest removed from the digital world have difficulty accessing or understanding ENT, the Inspectorate recommends mobilizing local authorities, associations, digital advisors, France Services and family allowance funds, as part of an "educational alliance", to maintain and develop support for families in all regions.
  • In June 2025, the same Inspectorate General published a report on artificial intelligence in schools. In it, the Inspectorate recommends the rapid implementation of a massive training plan for managers, as well as the rapid introduction of "face-to-face training in all schools to introduce all teachers as quickly as possible to the challenges and primary uses of AI in education". The inspectorate calls for " the construction of a national discourse" around AI, linking digital technology and pedagogy, "enabling equitable deployment throughout the country".

In this report, the Inspectorate General points to a number of contradictions in " the national discourse" on AI held by the institution, foremost among which is "a contradiction between the need to train students in AI and the need to respect a 'digital pause'". A contradiction "which, at least in terms, creates uncertainty about the use of certain digital tools with pupils (particularly in the 1st degree, where the digital break is widely understood as a halt to the use of screens with pupils)".

AI in education: a rapid need for training at all levels, a coherent national discourse to build on

In May 2025, the General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) published a report on artificial intelligence in schools. The report is organized in three parts: the first takes stock of AI's place in schools. It is based on a field survey and a consultation (4,943 teachers from five academies took part). The second part looks at the integration of AI into teaching, and the training issues involved (for students, teachers and managers). The third part addresses the issue of AI management in the education system.

The inspectorate strives to identify " areas for rapid action " (the word "rapid" appears 35 times).

A rapid need for training at all levels to ensure that AI is used wisely in education

" Whatever the audience interviewed (students, teachers, managers), they all point to the lack of training as a major obstacle. The media frenzy reinforces, for some players, the feeling of already being outdated ".

The mission recommends the rapid implementation of a massive training plan for managers, as well as the rapid introduction of "face-to-face training in all schools to introduce all teachers as quickly as possible to the challenges and primary uses of AI in education".

"As the issue of AI is likely to evolve rapidly, the school level appears to be the most appropriate to enable a multi-year training plan, the exchange of practices within teams, and the development of a common AI discourse and strategy in each school".

As far as students are concerned, even if reticence is less strong, "the need for training, a framework and guidance on the part of teaching staff is clearly expressed. The mission recommends the rapid implementation of an AI training curriculum that will enable both the training of future specialists and the education of all students in the challenges and uses of AI. Such a curriculum must draw on all school disciplines.

Rapid need for coordination at all levels to ensure equitable deployment across the country

Numerous AI initiatives are currently being developed at school, academy and central administration level: "However, all too often, they remain dependent on the impetus of one person (teacher or manager) who is personally committed to these themes. It is essential that these initiatives be better coordinated, so that they can be shared, evaluated from a pedagogical point of view and promoted throughout the country.

The inspectorate found that "AI governance is still too scattered", and that there are tensions "between a traditionally centralized operation and an administrative reality that is now decentralized. It also points to the existence of duplication. These are particularly visible in the field of training, which is developing without coordinated management between the central administration (DNE, DGESCO, IGÉSR), national operators (Réseau Canopé, France Université Numérique) and academic players".

The Inspectorate General recommends the rapid establishment of coordination bodies at various levels:

  • At facility level: this is the level at which strategic choices can be made, adapted to the public served and to specific local conditions;
  • At the academic level, to monitor the rapid deployment of the training plan, the AI curriculum and the AI strategy in schools;
  • At national level, with the creation of a national AI council bringing together all the players in the administration.

The need for a sustainable business model

The question of tools, and in particular the availability of sovereign tools, is a strong expectation in the field. "In this context, the strategy adopted by the French Ministry of Education aims to encourage the use of sovereign tools that comply with regulations, without prohibiting the use of mass-market tools that students already use.

Questions remain, however, about the cost of using these tools, whether for the general public or specifically developed for education. "Indeed, the French Ministry of Education has encouraged the development of an EdTech sector through P2IA experiments, which have led to the creation of specific tools (...) often acclaimed by experimental teachers, but whose added value has yet to be established. What's more, funding for large-scale, long-term deployment of these tools is currently not guaranteed.

Building a coherent national discourse

The Inspectorate is incisive in pointing out a series of contradictions in "national discourse".

"The lack of coordination between digital and pedagogical steering at national level, coupled with the difficulty of steering in an uncertain context (notably due to the volatility of technologies)" results in a series of contradictions.

  • "a contradiction between the need to train students in AI and the need to respect a "digital break" which, at least in terms, creates uncertainty about the use of certain digital tools with students (particularly in the 1st degree, where the digital break is widely understood as a halt to the use of screens with students) ;
  • a contradiction between the need to train students in AI and a return to fundamentals, often equated with teaching based on "traditional" methods considered more effective by a significant number of players in the field;
  • a contradiction between the deployment of AI, its ecological consequences and education for sustainable development in a school that chooses to use energy-hungry technologies;
  • a contradiction between the injunction of the need to train students in AI and the absence of sovereign tools".

The Inspectorate calls for " the construction of a coherent national discourse to provide a clear line between these various contradictions". It would be up to the national AI council to elaborate "this common discourse around AI, articulating digital and pedagogical aspects and enabling equitable deployment across the whole territory".

Référence :

What the AI in Education Framework provides for

On June 14, 2025, the French Ministry of Education published a framework for the use of artificial intelligence in education, the result of a consultation conducted from January to May 2025. For the first time, this document provides a framework for the pedagogical and administrative uses of generative AI in education.

The Usage Framework authorizes the use of AI subject to strict compliance with the values of the École de la République, legal obligations (RGPD, SREN law, European AI regulation).

It sets out a number of principles:

  • "AI must be used responsibly and reflectively, drawing on the professional expertise of the staff it can assist, but never replace.
  • "AI should only be used if no other less ecologically costly solution satisfactorily meets the need".
  • "The use of open-source solutions must be favored".
  • "The use of AI services accessible to the general public is authorized provided that no confidential or personal data is used.
  • "No member of staff should ask students to use consumer AI services involving the creation of a personal account".
  • "The use of AI in educational, pedagogical or administrative decision-making must be exercised transparently and responsibly, with explicit communication about its role and how it has been used."

Teacher-supported and supervised use

"In a pedagogical context, the use of AI to assist and not replace learning and intellectual effort must be supervised and accompanied by the teacher".

1st grade students are made aware of basic AI knowledge, but without directly handling generative AI services".

  • As early as the first grade, students are introduced to basic AI knowledge, but without directly handling generative AI services.
  • The pedagogical use of generative AI by students, supervised, explained and accompanied by the teacher, is authorized in the classroom from 4th grade onwards, in line with the objectives of school programs and the CRCN.
  • Throughout their school career, students receive compulsory training in AI and the issues it raises, at least in 4th year, 2nd year of general, technological and vocational courses, and in the first year of the CAP on the Pix platform.
  • In high school, students can use them independently within a learning and training framework explicitly defined by the teacher.

While teachers can propose teaching sequences integrating AI (without students manipulating generative AI before 4th grade), the usage framework reminds us that they must "take care to develop students' critical thinking about these technologies and their use (issues, potential, recommendations for drafting queries, limits and risks)".

For teaching purposes (assistance with lesson preparation, assessment, correction, etc.), " any teacher can use AI accessible to the general public, under his or her own responsibility, bearing in mind that, like any data or information used for teaching purposes, AI-generated productions must be verified and cross-referenced with other sources".

With regard to homework, the usage framework specifies that " the use of an AI to complete all or part of a school assignment, without explicit authorization from the teacher and without it being followed by personal appropriation work based on the content produced, constitutes fraud".

Référence :

A worried AI craze in schools

"Individual, personal practices have long been ahead of policy announcements, and often in the opposite direction. The school world is no exception to these contradictions, which it experiences on a daily basis," observes Bruno Devauchelle (Doctor in ICT) on the Café Pégagique website. "On the one hand, enthusiasts are firing on all cylinders to express their enthusiasm for the potential of AI in education. On the other, teachers are increasingly questioning the dangers, effects and consequences of AI.

"The world of teaching is all the more worried now that the power and proposals of AI are impressive and touch the heart of the profession (...) A student can claim new academic performances with the help of AI. Whether they use it in response to the demands and injunctions of their teachers, or to develop themselves, it is the role and even the place of the teacher that is in question. Teachers, for their part, will use AI to enrich their teaching, whether in terms of media (texts, photos, videos, etc.), content (selection, synthesis) or the design of their teaching (assessment, progression, etc.). Whether they admit it or not, teachers are now using AI more and more".

"Training teachers in AI - yes, but how?" asks Bruno Devauchelle. "On the face of it, it seems straightforward. In day-to-day practice, it's less obvious. First of all, when can teachers be trained? And if it's not in front of the students, will webinars be used (...) Our in-house experience, as a speaker, leads us to believe that this will only be useful if a real collective effort to monitor and share information is put in place in the school. The first step is for everyone to embark on a process of appropriation, the first part of which is personal empowerment, followed by discussion and co-development of how AI can and should be incorporated into everyday life. Worries need to be replaced by a sense of sufficient mastery, both in terms of various limitations and relevant, critical uses".

"We can't ignore our students' use of AI, but we can't abandon our ambition to train their human intelligence".

InTélérama, the Education Numérique Raisonée collective, which now includes some thirty teachers and management staff, calls for a wide-ranging debate on AI in schools.

"For some months now, pupils and students have been using them en masse to delegate their thinking and writing tasks. This observation is provoking a real crisis of meaning for teachers: can we still get students to think for themselves when they have unlimited, free and almost instantaneous access to a virtual assistant that short-circuits any attempt at personal reflection?" (...) We can't ignore the use of AI by our students, but we can't abandon our ambition to train their human intelligence. We must therefore support them in their enlightened use of AI, so that it enhances their intellectual capacities rather than atrophying them. That's what it's all about.

"In its framework document, the French Ministry of Education attempts to define what this good use would be. It offers some general common-sense advice, but appears helpless in the face of the actual use that students make of AI - namely, to offload their work. In fact, when it comes to homework, it is technically impossible to prevent them from using AI-generated content. Faced with this reality, the French Ministry of Education has decided to use AI as a learning tool, authorizing "the pedagogical use of generative AI by pupils, supervised, explained and accompanied by the teacher" from the fourth grade onwards.

However, accepting that the human brain in training relies on AI-generated results, even if reworked, is dangerous on two counts.

On the one hand, this approach threatens students' creativity, because it reinforces the idea that, having become inescapable, AI provides the basic material required before any human reflection, erasing the singularity and diversity of their own paths. (...) On the other hand, this approach requires students to take a step back, which they are often incapable of doing. To critically examine the results generated by AI, you first need to have learned how to produce them yourself".

The collective concludes: "We need to train students in AI through dedicated teaching and, for other subjects, make them understand the need not to give in to the ease it offers them. To convince them of this, we need to reinvent an education that values the joy of creating, the taste for effort and the importance of making mistakes".

Références :

Reinforced measures for supervising the use of digital technology in schools

In her Circulaire de rentrée, 2025, Élisabeth Borne, Minister of National Education, Higher Education and Research, summarizes the main provisions relating to " thereasoned use of digital technology in schools".

"The use of digital technology at school must be part of a progressive approach, adapted to each stage of schooling, to ensure the structured and coherent development of students' skills and enable them to build their citizenship. The health and well-being of students must be fully taken into account, with particular attention paid to limiting excessive exposure to screens and ensuring that digital technology adds educational value. This approach will be regularly presented and explained to families, particularly at the start of the school year.

The experimentation of digital breaks in middle schools has demonstrated positive effects on the school climate, the serenity of students and staff, and the availability of students for learning. The widespread introduction of the Portable en pause system in middle schools should ensure that students' cell phones and other connected objects are effectively kept away from the classroom. The organization of the system will be determined within each middle school in conjunction with the departments and families.

At the lycée, students will be involved in a debate on the place of cell phones within the school, and more generally on digital technology, notably within school democracy bodies. These discussions will feed into the school project.

At the same time, the updating of digital workspaces and school life software will be suspended by default in the evening from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. and on weekends from Friday 8 p.m. to Monday 7 a.m. (with the exception of schools open on Saturday mornings - from Saturday 2 p.m. to Monday 7 a.m.)".

These provisions will be detailed in a circular inJuly 2025.

Only 8.5% of secondary schools have set up the "Laptop at break" scheme for the start of the new school year.

Two weeks after the resumption of classes, just 8.5% of secondary schools have actually implemented the "Portable en pause" system, reportsLe Monde. According to a survey conducted by the Syndicat national des personnels de direction de l'Éducation nationale (SNPDEN-UNSA). 67% of school heads do not intend to apply it. 42.8% of school heads admit to being in favor of the principle, but consider it too complicated to implement. Only 6.9% feel that it is possible to organize with existing resources. For many school heads, the 2018 ban already effectively regulates cell phone use. In many schools, mobile phone use is now close to zero. They therefore see no need to complicate the system by systematically collecting devices.

Références :

A single digital platform, paper textbooks, digital textbooks: a debate that is resurfacing and dividing the education community

From the start of the 2025 school year, all high school students and teachers in the Île-de-France region will have to use Pearltrees, a unique digital platform for accessing textbooks. The Île-de-France region will stop funding paper textbooks and reduce its budget for traditional digital textbooks, in favor of content designed specifically for Pearltrees and accessible free of charge.

This decision sparked controversy, with the publication of an article in Le Monde, co-signed by textbook publishers, teachers and writers. "It's not just a technical choice.a choice for society. It involves the transmission of knowledge, the link between schools and families, and the freedom of teachers". The signatories point to three errors. "The first is the error of believing that a pile of digital resources can replace a structuring textbook, designed in its entirety by professionals. A textbook enables the progressive construction of knowledge, the legibility of the course and the link between concepts. (...) The error, then, of believing that all pupils have the material and family conditions to find their way around an unstructured world on their own. (...) The error, finally, of believing that innovation requires the imposition of a single tool, designed and administered by a community".

On the Café pédagogique website, Jean-Michel Le Baut, French teacher in Brest and active in the Living Lab Interactik in Rennes, calls for a " reorientation of the debate ". "What if, in this "new school war", we were to work towards a ceasefire? This means overcoming certain biased positions: for or against textbooks, for or against digital technology. It might also mean listening to what others have to say, in order to enlighten and reconsider the debate. Jean-Michel Le Baut begins by distinguishing between "Pearltrees.com", a curation service for the general public, and "Pearltrees Education", the educational service currently deployed in almost 2,000 establishments in France, including high schools in the Paris region. "In real-world educational use, it's a perfectly secure platform, integrated into the GAR, where you build collaborative workspaces and sharing with your classes. Is it difficult to get used to? On the contrary, many users, including students, stress its simplicity and fluidity, provided they use it regularly. As always, this requires ongoing training in its use and possibilities.

To teachers who deplore a " loss of pedagogical control or freedom "Jean-Michel Le Baut points out that "the use of Pearltrees Education is less about accessing digital textbooks (when they are available) than about producing their own 'textbooks', personal or customized, evolving, adapted, differentiated, collaborative, multimedia (...).(...) The platform opens up possibilities not offered by the usual textbooks, whether paper or digital, possibilities that colleagues have found particularly valuable when it came to ensuring "pedagogical continuity" in times of confinement (...). The reality is far more complex and interesting than that portrayed by certain conservatisms, be they economic, political or pedagogical ".

However, Jean-Michel Le Baut acknowledges that questions remain, particularly in terms of governance. "Can we once again massively deploy a teaching tool without consulting the teaching staff? Should we orchestrate a brutal competition between textbooks and platforms, between paper and digital, instead of seeking to articulate them intelligently, instead of encouraging freedom of choice according to the pedagogy we want to implement?".

Références :

Ways to improve the digital relationship between school and parents

Digital technology, with the deployment of digital workspaces (ENT) in the 2000s, and the concomitant rollout of school life software, has profoundly transformed school-family relations, both in terms of pace and methods. Parents now have direct access to course content, diaries, grades, homework and absences. In 2020, the health crisis marked an important turning point in the use of ENT to ensure pedagogical continuity.

This digitization of the school-family relationship, while strengthening parents' ability to support homework, is not without consequences: the possibility for parents to monitor schoolwork on a daily basis can increase pressure at school, with closer supervision, which is not always experienced positively by students, especially those in difficulty or dropping out.

Teachers, for their part, may " feel that their work is being interfered with because parents and their superiors have access to some of their course content", observed the Cnesco in 2020. " They also feel a form of interference in their personal lives because of messaging, and they fear too much solicitation from students and/or parents".

In a report devoted to the impact of digital technology on relations between schools and families, the French General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGÉSR) warns of the intensive use of ENT and school life software, particularly outside school hours. It recommends the implementation of a right to disconnect (no new publications between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m., nor during weekends and vacations).

Pointing out that the families furthest away from digital technology have difficulty accessing or understanding ENT, the inspectorate recommends mobilizing departmental councils, associations, digital advisors and France Services, as well as family allowance funds, within the framework of an "educational alliance", to maintain and develop this support in all regions.

The Inspectors General have formulated 16 measures to restore coherence to the development of ENT and school life software, to remove obstacles to their use, to support parents who are far removed from digital technology, and to correct the sometimes stressful use of these tools.

Read more : How is digital technology transforming the school-family relationship?

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[Dossier] Comment le numérique transforme-t-il la relation école-famille ?

Avant-proposLe rôle et la place des parents en ce qui concerne l'école est un thème récurrent des politiques éducatives. Les familles ont longtemps été peu intégrées à la vie quotidienne de l’école, notamment dans le secondaire. Les parents pénétraient peu dans les établissements. La relation école-famille reposait sur des rencontres formelles, généralement à la rentrée, plus rarement sur des bilans intermédiaires ou en fin d’année. Le flux d’échange était majoritairement à sens unique, l’école dictant le rythme et les modalités d’information. L’école transmettait les informations (notes, comportement, convocations, orientation…) via des supports papier comme les carnets, bulletins ou courriers. (IGESR, 2021).Le numérique, avec le déploiement des espaces numériques de travail (ENT) dans les années 2000, et celui, concomitant des logiciels de vie scolaire, a profondément transformé les relation école-famille : leur rythme et leurs modalités. Les parents peuvent désormais accéder directement aux contenus des cours, à l’agenda, aux notes, aux devoirs et absences des élèves. En 2020, la crise sanitaire a marqué un tournant important dans l’usage des ENT pour permettre la continuité pédagogique.Si la numérisation de la relation école-famille pourrait tendre à renforcer la capacité parentale à soutenir le travail à la maison, il faut noter que cela n’est pas sans conséquences : la possibilité pour les parents de suivre quotidiennement le travail scolaire peut augmenter la pression scolaire, avec une surveillance plus rapprochée, qui n’est pas toujours vécue positivement par les élèves, en particulier ceux/celles en difficulté ou en décrochage.Les enseignant.es, de leur côté, peuvent avoir « le sentiment d’une ingérence dans leur travail à cause de l’accès des parents et de leur hiérarchie et à certains de leurs contenus de cours » observait le Cnesco en 2020. « Ils ressentent également une forme d’ingérence dans leur vie personnelle à cause de la messagerie et ils craignent une trop forte sollicitation de la part des élèves et/ou des parents ».En avril 2024, l'inspection générale de l'éducation, du sport et de la recherche (IGÉSR) a été saisie pour analyser l'impact du numérique sur les relations entre l'école et les familles. L'inspection revient, dans son rapport, sur le déploiement des ENT, concomitant à celui des logiciels de vie scolaire, comme Pronote. L’Inspection dresse un bilan plutôt positif des ENT. Toutefois, elle s’inquiète, , de la position quasi-monopolistique d'un éditeur privé sur le marché des logiciels de vie scolaire. Une position dominante « qui peut fragiliser l’action du ministère dans sa volonté de régulation des services numériques, particulièrement en lien avec les acteurs privés ». Elle recense aussi toute une série de difficultés qui résultent de la multiplicité des acteurs (ministère, collectivités, éditeurs privés) et de leur difficulté à se coordonner : « des recouvrements fonctionnels entre certains services, l’emploi d’identifiants multiples, source de confusion pour les familles et les élèves mais aussi surcroit de travail d’assistance de la part des personnels éducatifs ».L'inspection alerte sur l'usage intensif des ENT et logiciels de vie scolaire notamment en dehors du temps scolaire. Elle recommande la mise en œuvre d'un droit à la déconnexion (pas de nouvelles publications entre 20h et 7h, ni durant les week-ends et vacances).Rappelant que les familles les plus éloignées du numérique rencontrent des difficultés d'accès ou de compréhension des ENT, l'inspection recommande de mobiliser, dans le cadre d’une « alliance éducative » les conseils départementaux, les associations, les conseillers numériques et France Services, les caisses d'allocations familiales, pour maintenir et développer, dans l’ensemble des territoires, cet accompagnement.Enfin, elle formule, en conclusion 16 mesures pour remettre de la cohérence dans le développement des ENT et des logiciels de vie scolaire, pour lever les freins à leur utilisation, pour accompagner les parents éloignés du numérique et pour corriger les utilisations parfois stressantes de ces outils. 99 % des lycées publics, 89 % des collèges publics et 62 % des écoles publiques proposent un ENTLes premiers espaces numériques de travail (ENT) ont vu le jour au début des années 2000, sous l’impulsion du ministère de l’Éducation.Les ENT centralisent de nombreux services pour les élèves, les parents, les enseignant.es et l’administration :accès aux ressources pédagogiques (cours, exercices, documents...) ;outils de communication (messagerie, forums, visioconférences...) ;gestion administrative (inscriptions des élèves, paiement des cantines...) ;suivi individuel des élèves (absences, comportement, gestion des notes et bulletins scolaires).Les ENT sont financés par les départements pour les collèges, par les régions pour les lycées. Dans les écoles, l’organisation et le financement varient selon les régions ou les académies. Un marché des ENT a ainsi vu le jour, avec plusieurs éditeurs qui proposent des solutions dans le respect dun schéma directeur (SDET). L’offre relativement foisonnante d’ENT proposés par des éditeurs s’est progressivement concentrée autour de quatre éditeurs qui se partagent désormais l’essentiel du marché des ENT.À la rentrée 2024, 99 % des lycées publics, 89 % des collèges publics et 62 % des écoles publiques proposent un ENT.92 % des élèves du second degré et 64 % des élèves du premier degré bénéficient d’un ENT ainsi que leurs parents.Selon l'IGESR « Les ENT désormais incontournables pour la communication avec les familles »Le rapport de l'inspection générale de l'éducation, du sport et de la recherche (IGESR) dresse un bilan plutôt positif des ENT : « ces outils ont joué un rôle décisif lors de la crise sanitaire pour assurer la continuité pédagogique. (...) Dans le premier degré, les écoles ont, à l’occasion de cette crise, mis en place les premiers usages sans cadre régulé et les ont ensuite majoritairement confirmés avec le déploiement d’une solution ENT qualifiée. Les services de visioconférence, peu présents dans les ENT avant la crise sanitaire, ont été depuis utilisés par les établissements scolaires pour proposer des conférences ou des réunions hybrides. La visioconférence, démocratisée également par la massification du télétravail dans la société, est devenue un moyen dont se sont saisis certains chefs d’établissement pour s’assurer d’une plus large participation des parents à l’occasion de différentes réunions d’information ou de sensibilisation (initialement créés en 2003 autour d’un objectif pédagogique), elle a conduit à une intensification des usages autour d’un objectif partagé : assurer la continuité pédagogique. Une fois la crise sanitaire passée, l’ENT est resté inscrit dans le paysage éducatif et son usage n’a pas décliné mais progressé ».« Les ENT sont désormais incontournables, dans la vie des établissements, pour la communication avec les familles, et ils sont reconnus comme tels. Le regard critique qui peut être porté sur eux, et plus globalement sur la relation au numérique et aux écrans, ne remet pas en cause leur légitimité mais la place qu’il convient de leur donner au service d’un projet pédagogique et éducatif. Par ailleurs le perfectionnement de l’outil est un atout bien identifié, qui pourra être mis à profit dans l’hypothèse de crises futures ».« Au regard d’autres vecteurs de communication (réseaux sociaux, messageries privées) souvent utilisés par les personnels, les parents et les élèves, par commodité, ou par réflexe, et sans en mesurer les risques, l’ENT offre par ailleurs, de l’avis des personnes entendues, un environnement de confiance, sécurisé, qui répond aux exigences du RGPD et fait l’objet d’une contractualisation entre les acteurs à partir d’un cahier des charges protecteur ». L’émergence d’un acteur dominant dans la relation numérique école-familleAlors que les régions et les départements concentraient leurs efforts et leurs financements sur le déploiement des ENT, conçus principalement comme un portail, comme un point d’entrée unifié donnant accès à une large gamme de services, les chefs d’établissements se procuraient auprès d’autres éditeurs (comme Index Education) des logiciels de confection des emplois du temps, qui n’étaient fournis ni par les éditeurs d’ENT, ni par le ministère.En étendant les fonctionnalités de ces logiciels EDT à la gestion de la vie scolaire (absences, retards, bulletins) et en les intégrant dans les ENT (avec l’accord des collectivités), les éditeurs de logiciels de vie scolaire (Pronote, en premier lieu, mis au point par la société Index Education) ont pris pied sur le marché des ENT. Les logiciels sont progressivement devenus le principal vecteur des relations école-famille, éclipsant les autres services proposés par les ENT.« Deux éditeurs, Index Éducation et Aplim, sont majoritaires, voire quasi monopolistiques, sur le marché des logiciels de vie scolaire, logiciels qui sont en fait des plateformes accessibles en mode web et via une application mobile ».La Cour des Comptes s’était émue, dès 2020, de la montée en puissance de la société Index Education : « La prédominance d’un éditeur privé crée de fait une forte relation de dépendance entre cette société et les établissements scolaires, chacun client d’une même solution logicielle. Outre les aspects financiers, se posent d’une part la question de l’ouverture aux données des élèves et de leur protection » .Une inquiétude relayée, en 2025, par l’IGESR : « Pronote, du fait de sa position quasi-monopolistique en tant que logiciel de vie scolaire, présente le risque d’apparaître comme l’acteur dominant dans la relation numérique de l’école aux familles ».L’IGESR pointe, notamment, un certain nombre de pratiques tarifaires.La société Index Education « imposerait aux établissements scolaires, lorsqu’un ENT autre que sa propre solution est mis en œuvre en leur sein, une tarification d’interopérabilité pour l’échange des données issues de son logiciel, avec des coûts supplémentaires jugés importants par les EPLE ».Le SMS s’est progressivement imposé dans les établissements pour atteindre les familles, notamment pour signaler l’absence d’un élève à ses parents (SMS individuel), rappeler des réunions importantes ou communiquer en situation d’urgence ou de crise (SMS vers tout ou partie des parents). Selon l’IGESR, la tarification des SMS par Index Education serait « près de 60 % plus chère que les tarifs accessibles au ministère pour la diffusion de SMS (…) Des alternatives à moindre coût existent mais ne peuvent pas être directement couplées à Pronote ». L’IGESR ajoute « qu’en en raison du coût important des SMS et de leur poids sur le budget de l’établissement scolaire, plus particulièrement dans les collèges, certains chefs d’établissement en ont restreint fortement ou abandonné l’usage du SMS ».« Ce rôle central », conclut l'IGESR, « peut fragiliser l’action du ministère dans sa volonté de régulation des services numériques, particulièrement en lien avec les acteurs privés. Par ailleurs, certaines données renseignées par les établissements scolaires dans les logiciels EDT et Pronote sont nécessaires au fonctionnement des ENT dans le second degré. Elles portent notamment sur l’organisation pédagogique, les emplois du temps ou les informations nécessaires au tableau de bord des actualités. Le ministère gagnerait à se doter d’un cadre à destination des acteurs (collectivités territoriales, éditeurs, chefs d’établissement) qui fixe la circulation des données, favorise l’interopérabilité et soit opposable ». Un foisonnement d’outils, une mise en cohérence nécessaireLe ministère de l’Education dressait, en 2023, à l’occasion de la publication de sa stratégie numérique pour l’éducation, un bilan des difficultés rencontrées dans l’usage des outils numériques proposés par l’écosystème de l’éducation : « des interfaces complexes et hétérogènes, peu attractives, parfois éloignées des standards, inégalement accessibles et guère adaptées à la mobilité, une absence de portabilité des données nécessitant de multiples ressaisies, des ruptures de connexion entre les outils, des performances insuffisantes, etc. Cette situation (…) se traduit directement dans la qualité du service offert, avec une offre numérique éclatée entre de multiples portails ou services en ligne opérés par l’État (portail Scolarité services), les différents niveaux de collectivités locales et différents opérateurs publics et privés (logiciels de vie scolaire notamment). Cette multiplicité d’outils crée un parcours labyrinthique et incertain au détriment des usages, de la confiance et de la liberté de choix de certaines ressources numériques. Une réflexion commune des acteurs est nécessaire pour lever ces obstacles ».Pour structurer cette offre foisonnante, le ministère de l’éducation tablait sur le déploiement d’une authentification unifiée via ÉduConnect (avec l’objectif de 100 % des élèves utilisant leur identité ÉduConnect pour accéder aux outils et ressources numériques éducatifs à la rentrée 2026.Deux ans plus tard, l’IGESR actualise ce diagnostic : elle recense toute une série de difficultés qui résultent de la multiplicité des acteurs (ministère, collectivités, éditeurs privés) et de leur difficulté à se coordonner.« Le déploiement des ENT, sans plan directeur national, a pu provoquer de la perplexité et une certaine confusion chez les parents obligés parfois de gérer deux ou trois ENT différents en fonction du niveau de scolarisation de leurs enfants ».« Des parcours d’usage parfois déroutants » : « Si historiquement l’accès à l’ENT s’est fait par un navigateur à partir d’un ordinateur, l’apparition depuis 2010 des usages mobiles et plus récemment des applications mobiles a conduit à une fragmentation difficile à suivre pour les acteurs. Ainsi la cohabitation de l’application mobile ENT et de l’application Pronote peut engendrer des flux de communications, d’informations, et des sollicitations dans l’une ou l’autre des applications ou dans les deux. Cette juxtaposition de deux applications mobiles a fait perdre à l’ENT son rôle d’agrégateur, qui permettait depuis un point unique d’accéder aux différents services ».« Des recouvrements fonctionnels entre certains services, par exemple la messagerie et le cahier de textes, lorsqu’ils sont présents et activés tant dans l’ENT que dans le logiciel de vie scolaire. Si des établissements ont tenté de trouver une solution à ce problème en communiquant exclusivement par Pronote avec les parents, c’est en renonçant à certaines fonctionnalités pourtant essentielles comme la messagerie de l’ENT, en général jugée plus performante, notamment pour l’envoi de pièces jointes ».« l’emploi d’identifiants multiples, source de confusion pour les familles et les élèves mais aussi surcroit de travail d’assistance de la part des personnels éducatifs. (…) La mise en place d’EduConnect dans un ENT est à la main des collectivités territoriales ou des éditeurs. Mais certaines collectivités souhaitent maintenir une identité propre à l’ENT, et quelques établissements scolaires, de leur côté, décident de ne pas mettre en œuvre l’ENT de la collectivité, pourtant couplé à EduConnect, et déploient uniquement Pronote. Dans tous les cas, le choix de ne pas adosser le fonctionnement des services numériques de l’établissement scolaire à l’identité EduConnect prive les parents et les élèves d’un accès simplifié et sécurisé à l’ensemble des services ».L’IGESR plaide pour « une mise en cohérence des outils (...) autour d’un parcours utilisateur simplifié qui agrège les différents services constitutifs d’un ENT, y compris ceux de vie scolaire et les téléservices de l’éducation nationale, de façon à faciliter leur accès. La DGESCO, la DNE, les régions académiques et les collectivités territoriales doivent conduire cette mise en cohérence du parcours d’usage et des services, en associant les représentants des familles et les éditeurs / intégrateurs ».EduConnect est l’un des leviers de cette mise en cohérence : « une seule identité d’accès des parents et des élèves à l’ensemble des services est nécessaire. EduConnect doit être déployé par tous les projets ENT dans les écoles et établissements scolaires publics. Les régions académiques doivent y travailler avec les collectivités territoriales ». 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C’est le cas d’une partie des familles allophones, plus exposées à cette double fragilité qui peut aggraver leur insécurité numérique ».« Face à de telles situations (qui peuvent présenter des degrés divers de gravité en fonction des établissements), aussi bien l’institution scolaire que les collectivités territoriales, le monde associatif ont essayé d’apporter des réponses ». L’IGESR recense un grand nombre d’initiatives locales (aides à l’équipement, réunions d’information ou de médiation, accompagnement des parents) que nationales, comme la « Trousse à projets ». L’inspection tire les enseignements de la politique des Territoires numériques éducatifs (TNE) mise en œuvre depuis 2021 dans une douzaine de départements. « Les TNE ont montré la difficulté à toucher et sensibiliser les parents, et les écueils rencontrés lors du déploiement du volet relatif à la parentalité numérique. Mais ce déploiement (doté d’un budget global de 7 M€) a permis d’expérimenter et de développer des pratiques et des organisations modélisantes ».La mission recommande de mobiliser, dans le cadre d’une « alliance éducative » les conseils départementaux, les associations (Ligue de l’enseignement, CEMEA, associations familiales), les conseillers numériques et France Services, les caisses d'allocations familiales, pour maintenir et développer, dans l’ensemble des territoires, cet accompagnement.« Au regard des difficultés multiples rencontrées par les familles les plus éloignées des ressources et des compétences numériques, l’IGESR plaide pour « une gouvernance interministérielle de l’accompagnement à la parentalité numérique, à laquelle le Ministère de l’éducation doit contribuer sur le volet scolaire et éducatif (…) Cette politique pourrait être portée par le ministère en charge de la famille, et s’appuyer sur la coordination d’un ensemble de contributeurs pour plus de cohérence et d’efficacité ». 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Pix parents : un nouvel outil pour la parentalité numériqueDepuis 2021, tous les collégiens et lycéens français certifient leurs compétences numériques avec Pix.Pix s’adresse désormais aux parents, avec le lancement de nouveaux parcours thématiques liés à la parentalité numérique : des petits modules courts pour évaluer ses compétences face à des situations variées, et pour aborder des sujets comme le contrôle parental, les réseaux sociaux, la prévention du cyberharcèlement, ou encore l’orientation de ses enfants avec ParcourSup par exemple. Neuf parcours thématiques ont été mis en ligne.Lire la suite : Pix parents : un nouvel outil pour la parentalité numérique

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" numerous shortcomings (...) in the development of digital technology in primary education".

In its report on primary education in 2025, the Cour des Comptes (French National Audit Office) makes a harsh assessment of the deployment of digital technology in schools.

The Cour des Comptes looks back at school equipment policies and the measures put in place: the "digital base for elementary schools" call for projects (financed by France Relance to the tune of €115 million), the PIX+Edu positioning tests offered to all primary school teachers, and the "Territoires numériques éducatifs" (educational digital territories) grouping together 13,000 schools (€200 million mobilized in 12 départements). " Despite all these initiatives, which aim to define a concerted strategy between the State and local authorities, and which demonstrate a concern for the appropriation of resources by teachers, many shortcomings are apparent in the development of digital technology in primary education ". The Cour des Comptes regrets that " there is no consolidated view of the state of development and use of digital media in primary education".

"Another difficulty in implementing this policy is measuring the risk of inequalities resulting from the uneven financial investment of local authorities, due to the wide diversity of their financial capacities. The division of responsibilities between the State (which defines the reference systems) and local authorities (which finance the equipment) " no longer corresponds to the reality of these materials at a time when artificial intelligence is emerging, which imperatively implies the implementation of a new strategy with a single level of responsibility for the use and deployment of digital technology in schools".

"The Cour des Comptes adds: " From now on, equipment should be more closely geared to identified educational needs, in consultation with all partners, so as to put in place a real strategy for the future, to benefit the well-being and development of pupils throughout their school career.

In the end, concludes the Cour des Comptes, "a number of measures are needed to better adapt digital equipment to pedagogical needs, making it fully available for learning. We need to ensure that the use of educational digital technology is progressive, to take into account factors related to children's development and well-being. The question of initial and in-service training for teachers is, in this respect, decisive, the ultimate aim being to encourage them to better integrate digital technology as a tool at the service of teaching".

Référence :

"Promote graduated education in and through digital technology, with its rightful place at school".

A group of 60 researchers, academics and business leaders in the digital education sector are calling for digital education to be given its rightful place in schools, far from clichés and the prevailing tendency to "pamphleteer".

"(...) We, education professionals, researchers, associations and entrepreneurs, are warning of the dangers of confusing screens, social networks and digital education. Schools are not "digitized". Data from the French Ministry of Education bear witness to this: teachers complain of outdated equipment and poor connectivity, making it difficult to implement innovative pedagogies adapted to students' needs. It's not the use of digital technology in schools that's the problem. The school offers a structured, protected time devoted to the development of intelligence and secured by the Ministry. This time deserves to be valued: digital content can support learning, if accompanied by appropriate training. They facilitate pedagogical differentiation in increasingly heterogeneous classes, and are an extraordinary opportunity for students with special needs.

Rather than accusing schools of "hyper-digitization", it would be fairer and more effective to attack the sector's foreign giants, whose business models are based on capturing data, including children's, and on deliberately addicting designs. In contrast, the French digital education sector is working to create a responsible digital environment that respects students' data and attention.

To meet these challenges, we propose a path. This path is being written at a time when generative artificial intelligence, media and information literacy, and the capacity for discernment are taking on increasing importance in society. This is neither inevitable nor dangerous. What we need to do is promote a gradual education in and through the digital world, one that is supervised and controlled, and that has its rightful place in schools and in teacher training. If schools don't fulfill this role, how will young people learn, in an equitable manner, to use digital technology in a reasoned and civic manner? (...)

This path we are proposing implies teacher training and evaluation before any widespread use of these tools. Let's have this ambition for our school and for all our children".

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Sources

Labo Société Numérique

Labo République Française Agence nationale de cohésion des territoires
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