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SNT in second year, NSI in first and last year: a change of scale in digital education in high school

With the creation, at the start of the 2019 school year, of a compulsory course in the second year of secondary school, "Digital Sciences and Technology" (NST ), and the creation, in the first and final years of secondary school, of the speciality course "Digital and Computer Sciences" (NSI), the teaching of digital technology in secondary school is changing scale.In the second year, the teaching of " Digital Sciences and Technology " concerns 560,000 students, 18,600 classes, i.e. 28,000 hours (without taking into account the duplication). At the start of the 2019 school year, 31,502 students in Première have chosen the new "Digital and Computer Sciences" specialization. "Digital sciences and technology": a generalized teaching for 560,000 students in the second year of secondary school Within the framework of the reform of the baccalaureate, a new teaching mandatory has been created in the general and technological second year. It replaces the (optional) exploration course in Computer Science and Digital Creation. This teaching has been generalized at the start of the school year in September 2019 to all French high schools for the second year classes.With a weekly duration of 1.5 hours, this teaching aims to allow students to grasp the main concepts of digital sciences, but also to allow students, based on a technological object, to understand the growing importance of digital technology and the resulting societal issues.This course is an extension of the teaching of algorithms, computer science and programming provided in secondary school in mathematics and technology. It deepens these notions and the practice of programming through activities related to the 7 themes of the program: Internet, the Web, social networks, structured data and their processing, location, cartography and mobility, embedded computing and connected objects, digital photography. 8% of first-year students chose the new specialty course "Numerics and Computer Science".At the start of the 2019 school year, 31,502 students chose to take the new "digital and computer science" specialization. This is all the more notable because this teaching is not yet offered by all schools, due to a lack of teachers trained in this discipline.8.1% of the 386,600 students in 1ère générale chose digital and computer science education: among them, six times more girls (2.6%) than boys (15.2%).On the other hand, the choice of "digital and computer sciences" is not very much determined by social origin: 8.4% of students from an advantaged social background chose this course, 7.7% of students from an average social background and 7% of students from a disadvantaged social background. Nearly 120,000 students in their final year of high school have taken a "computer science and digital science" course since 2013The "digital and computer sciences" specialization in the first and last years of high school (4 hours) replaces the "computer and digital sciences" specialization (2 hours per week). Introduced in 2012, this course was only offered to students in the terminale S. In 2018, it concerned 22,000 students (about 11.4%) in 1,231 high schools.In total, since 2013, nearly 120,000 Terminale S students have taken this course.In September 2016, the National Education had implemented an optional teaching " computer science and digital creation" (ICN) for the classes of première ES, L and S, extended in September 2017 to the classes of terminale ES and L.This teaching should "allow students to understand the logic and the stakes of information processing, to acquire a new mastery of the logic and concepts implemented in the digital domain, but also to mobilize the digital as a vector of creativity".The ICN exploration course in the second year of secondary school (1.5 hours per week) concerned 32,000 students (about 6%) in 1,172 high schools in 2018The optional ICN course (2 hours per week), intended for students in 1ère (L, ES and S series), and terminale (L and ES series), on the other hand, concerned only 3,650 students (0.7%) in 365 high schools.

• Inclusion

Published on 27/11/19



6 times more boys than girls in the 1st grade chose the new "Numerical and Computer Sciences" course

The reform of the baccalaureate has introduced a new speciality course: " digital and computer sciences".The reform abolished the former literary (L), economic and social (ES) and scientific (S) series of the general track. Students entering the première générale (at the start of the 2019 school year) were required to choose three specialty courses from among the 19 offered (including 7 artistic courses). These three compulsory specialties are in addition to the core subjects and the two compulsory modern languages. The three specialties in Première will be reduced to two in Terminale, with an hourly volume of three times four hours per week in Première and two times six hours per week in Terminale.8.1% of students chose "Digital and Computer Science" (DCS)At the national level, at the start of the 2019 school year, 31,502 students in 1ère (out of 386,600) chose to study "digital and computer science" (NSI). This course ranks 8th among the most chosen courses.This eighth place ranking is all the more noteworthy given that only 750 public high schools and 250 private high schools offer this type of education, due to the lack of teachers trained in this discipline. The new CAPES will open in 2020.8.1% of the students in the first year of general education chose "education": 2.6% of girls and 15.2% of boys. digital and computer sciencesSix times more boys than girls ...digital and computer sciencesThe gender bias is more pronounced for "(NSI) than for mathematics, chosen by 61% of girls and 78% of boys, or physics-chemistry, chosen by 57% of boys and 39% of girls.) While 11% of boys and 2% of girls chose Engineering Sciences, Life and Earth Sciences (LES) was chosen by 45% of girls and 41% of boys.digital and computer sciencesIn general, girls remain more clearly oriented towards the language specialties, the teaching of " " and (less strongly) towards the teaching of history-geography-geopolitics and SES. While 69% of students in 1ère Générale chose mathematics overall, 76% of students from very privileged social backgrounds did so, whereas 62% of students from disadvantaged social backgrounds took this subject. Similarly, students from disadvantaged social backgrounds chose physics and chemistry less often than those from advantaged social backgrounds.humanities, literature and philosophyNSI: more open to students from privileged social backgrounds than other science coursesFrom this point of view, the choice of "education" appears to be much less determined by social origin: it concerns 8.4% of students from privileged social backgrounds, 7.7% of students from average social backgrounds and 7.7% of students from disadvantaged social backgrounds.digital and computer sciencesOn the other hand, SES, history-geography, languages and humanities are chosen more by students from disadvantaged social backgrounds than on average. This is also the case for the arts. The "Numerics and Computer Science" speciality course in the first year of the general streamThe specialization in digital and computer science in the final year of the general education cycle aims to provide students with the fundamentals of computer science in order to prepare them for further study in higher education, by training them in the practice of a scientific approach and by developing their appetite for research activities.The objective of this course, which is not professionally oriented, is the appropriation of the concepts and methods that form the basis of computer science, in its scientific and technical dimensions. This teaching is based on the universality of four fundamental concepts and the variety of their interactions: To these concepts is added a transversal element: the interfaces that allow communication with humans, the collection of data and the control of systems.Data, which represent in a unified digital form very diverse information: texts, images, sounds, physical measurements, sums of money, etc. - The algorithms, which specify in an abstract and precise way the treatments to be carried out on the data from elementary operations.Languages, which allow abstract algorithms to be translated into textual or graphical programs so that they can be executed by machines.The machines and their operating systems, which allow to execute programs by chaining a large number of simple instructions, ensure the persistence of data by their storage and manage communications. We include connected objects and networks.This teaching is an extension of the computer science lessons given in elementary school, in secondary school in mathematics and technology and, in secondary school, the common teaching of digital science and technology.It is also based on the algorithms practiced in mathematics in the second year of high school.It allows you to develop skills:analyze and model a problem in terms of information flow and processing;Break down a problem into sub-problems, recognize previously analyzed situations and reuse solutions;design algorithmic solutions;translate an algorithm into a programming language, specify interfaces and interactions, understand and reuse existing source code, develop program development and validation processes;mobilize the concepts and technologies useful to ensure the functions of acquisition, memorization, processing and dissemination of information;develop abstraction and generalization skills. A CAPES "digital and computer sciences" in 2020The Minister of Education announced in January 2019 the creation of a Capes in computer science from 2020The first session of the Capes "Numerics and Computer Science" will take place in 2020. The winners will be appointed as trainee teachers at the beginning of the school year in September 2020.To be eligible for the external competition, candidates must meet the following diploma requirements:be enrolled in the first year of study (M1) for a master's degree,or meet the requirements to enroll in the final year of study for a master's degree,or be enrolled in the final year of studies (M2) for a Master's degree,or hold a master's degree or a title or diploma recognized as equivalent.

• Inclusion

Published on 21/11/19



Specialty course "Numerical and Computer Sciences", what is the outcome for the start of the 2021 school year?

The reform of the baccalaureate has introduced a new speciality teaching: " Digital and Computer Sciences " (NSI). It is one of the 19 specialty courses offered, since 2019, in Première and Terminale.The start of the 2021 school year is the third in the première and the second in the terminale where students choose specialty courses instead of a series. At the start of the 2021 school year, 9.6% of first-year students chose " digital and computer science " (9% in 2020). NSI is the 8th most chosen teaching, as it was in 2020. The students in the first year of the 2021 school year have changed their choices very little compared to their elders the previous year: mathematics, SES, physics-chemistry and SVT are still the most frequently chosen specialties. At the beginning of the new school year, only 4.3% of students in their final year opted for the NSI speciality (3.7% in 2020). It is also in 8th position.The decline in the choice of NSI courses between the first and the last year of high school is also observed for mathematics and physics-chemistry, which are decreasing in favor of economic and social sciences, history and languages. More than half of the students in the first year of high school who took the CLF specialty drop out in their final yearIn the terminale, students have to drop one of the three specialty courses taken in première. On average, the dropout rate is 33%: NSI, along with Latin-Greek and engineering sciences, are among the most abandoned specialty courses: more than 50% of students on average, at the start of the 2021 school year as in the 2020 school year. In June 2021, France Inter looked at the various specialty courses. France Inter had collected the views of the president of the Association of Computer Science Teachers of France (AEIF), an association that emerged with the discipline and that of the Director General of School Affairs of the Ministry of Education.difficulties of the digital disciplineAccording to Charles Poulmaire, NSI teacher in a high school in the Yvelines and AEIF president,"The students take refuge in a classic choice. We are also faced with competition from other subjects because computer science, NSI, is only taught in Première, whereas all the other subjects, math, physics, SVT, are taught in collège, so the students are used to it. What is needed is to have computer science taught in the second year of high school, or even in the middle school.According to the Director General of School Affairs, Edouard Geffray, "The first interesting element is that we have a specialty that has burst onto the scene and has attracted almost one student in ten, with a significant increase in one year. This is the normal trajectory of a new specialty. I am not surprised that a certain number of students played it safe and took up specialties that were perhaps more identified, including by families.  Of greater concern to the director general of school affairs is the higher dropout rate for girls."Our female high school students are almost 60% to drop out of CLF while we are barely at 50% for boys. This means that we need to work on the image of the CLF specialty and its necessary feminization." Five times more boys than girls in the first year of high school, 7 times more in the last year of high schoolOnly 18.5% of the students taking the NSI specialty in Première are girls and 13.7% in Terminale, i.e. one girl for every 5 or 7 boys respectively. Girls are also underrepresented in math, but to a lesser extent: 40% girls in math and 47% in physics and chemistry. Towards a target of 40% of girls in 2028 for scientific and digital educationIn a report dedicated to gender equality, submitted to the Minister of Education in July 2021, Sophie Béjean, Rector of the Occitanie academic region, Claude Roiron, Ministerial Delegate for Gender Equality, and Jean-Charles Ringard, Inspector General of Education, Sport and Research, point out the under-representation of girls in scientific specialties, and more specifically in the NSI speciality course.This " gender stereotyping " is linked by the authors of the report to the insufficient share of women among engineers in general (28%) and, in particular, among engineers in the digital sector (7%).Among the measures for voluntarily steering gender equality policies recommended by the rapporteurs is the setting of a national target: "within three years, starting in 2022, all speciality courses, all technological series and all post-baccalaureate courses should be at least 30% co-educational, and by 2028 at least 40% co-educational in the science and digital sectors".The authors of the report recommend, in this perspective, to "consolidate the dimension "digital humanities" in the teaching:or by creating an optional "Digital Humanities" course in the final cycle ;or by a better consideration of digital tools for humanities and digital thinking in the programs concerned;or by the creation of a "digital humanities" speciality course.

• Inclusion

Published on 28/01/22