This note provides an overview of France’s digital education ecosystem, including the digital tools for system and institutional management and digital resources for teaching and learning that are publicly provided to schools and educational stakeholders. The note outlines how public responsibilities for the governance of digital education are divided and examines how France supports the equitable and effective access to and use of digital technology and data in education. This includes through practices and policies on procurement, interoperability, data privacy and regulation, and digital competencies. Finally, the note discusses how France engages in any initiatives, including with the EdTech sector, to drive innovation and research and development towards an effective digital ecosystem.
Country Digital Education Ecosystems and Governance
11. France
Abstract
Key features
In France, the ministry of national education and youth provides a multiplicity of digital tools for system and school management as well as digital resources for teaching and learning. The central provision of several key national tools is supported by the efforts of regional, sub-regional and local entities, in line with the governance of the education system. Schools and teachers receive central and local guidance for using those tools and resources, and they can be mandated or incentivised to use them. However, they still have freedom to acquire and use resources from other providers, in compliances with central guidelines on procurement and data protection.
France’s 2023-2027 digital education strategy outlines and guides the actions of the ministry in the digitalisation of the education system at all levels. Aiming for establishing a comprehensive, multi-faceted public digital ecosystem in education, the ministry has implemented policy mechanisms that support all education stakeholders in their access to, and use of, digital tools in education, with specific attention given to disadvantaged schools and students.
France supports innovation, research, and development on digital education through a host of partnerships that join together government officials, academic research centres, EdTech firms, and educational actors. Through rules and guidelines, the ministry promotes interoperability and the use of common standards, and it facilitates the use of education data for research in compliance with strict data protection laws. In addition, the ministry cultivates all stakeholders’ digital literary by offering professional development opportunities and establishing specific requirements related to digital tools as part of teacher training and in the national curricula.
General policy context
Division of responsibility
In France, the Ministère de l’Éducation nationale et de la Jeunesse (ministry of national education and youth (hereinafter “the ministry”)) is responsible for providing education at the central level. It devises policy, prepares and implements legislation, sets curricula, oversees state diplomas and manages the recruitment and training of teaching staff as well as of most educational administrative, technical and health staff. The ministry has a devolved structure with “academic regions” and “academies” that are regional and local education authorities responsible for implementing the national policy taking into account the particularities of the different territories. However, some areas of competence have been devolved to local governments, in particular as regards the physical infrastructure and operation of public schools (buildings, equipment, school meals, etc.): municipalities are responsible for primary schools, départements (sub-regional units) for lower secondary schools, and regions for upper secondary schools.
Public responsibilities for providing access to, supporting the uptake of, and regulating the use of digital technologies in education follow this division of responsibility to some extent. Across all levels of education, the central government is the sole public provider and operator of digital tools for system management; but it is supported by regional and municipal authorities for institutional management tools. Providing access to digital resources for teaching and learning is also a responsibility that the central government shares with regions, départements and municipalities at their corresponding level of competence.
Digital education strategy
In early 2023, France published its 2023-2027 digital education strategy.1 Various education stakeholders – the State, regional and local authorities, publishers, EdTech representatives, and associations – have contributed to this strategic reflection, taking stock of the lessons learnt during the COVID-19 crisis and building on proposals that emerged from years of national and local consultations on digitalisation. The 2023-2027 strategy is structured around four pillars: i) an engaged ecosystem serving a shared public policy; ii) a digital education that fosters citizenship and digital skills; iii) an educational community supported by a thoughtful, sustainable, and inclusive digital offering; and iv) a new state of play for a user-oriented information system.
This digital education strategy is undertaken within the framework of France 2030, a EUR 54 billion cross-sector investment plan, which followed the France Relance plan designed during the pandemic. This plan entails spendings on hardware infrastructure and digital equipment. As part of France 2030, local authorities (regions, départements, municipalities) have massively invested in broadband, Wi-Fi, mobile connection, and Intranet servers in schools and in the provision of computers, tablets and mobile devices to students, at school or at home.2 School equipment is indeed one of their prerogatives. The ministry has guided those investments with a centrally defined framework called Socle d’équipement numérique de base (“Core digital equipment framework”), declined for primary, lower secondary and upper secondary schools.3 This “Core digital equipment framework” has primarily targeted students with special needs and schools with low socio-economic pupils and in rural areas.
Beyond education, the French government has established three main organisations that centrally coordinate the deployment and use of digital tools across sectors. First, the Direction interministérielle du numérique (DINUM, or “Inter-ministerial Digital Directorate”), which was established as a department under the prime minister and reports to the minister for public transformation and the civil service, is responsible for developing the State’s digital strategy and for overseeing its implementation.4 Second, also placed under the prime minister’s authority, France Stratégie, an independent public institution, has established a National Committee for Digital Strategy that produces policy analyses and recommendations to guide public actions.5 Finally, the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) acts as the French Data Protection Authority for everyone within and outside the education sector.
The public digital education infrastructure
The French ministry of education and youth provides several components of the public digital ecosystem in education. Schools and teachers can then choose to acquire additional elements to this baseline digital ecosystem, either directly from the private sector or from other education stakeholders that release tools and resources for free. This section reviews two aspects of the public digital infrastructure in France: digital tools for system and school management, and digital learning resources for teaching and learning.
Digital ecosystem for system and school management
Student information and learning management system
Two central student information systems support the French ministry in operating the education system: the first, Onde (Outil numérique pour la direction de l’école, meaning "digital tool for school administration”), is addressed to primary school principals and their corresponding municipalities; and the second, SIECLE (for “Système d'information pour les élèves en collèges et lycée et pour les établissements” – information system for students in middle and high school and for establishments), is addressed to lower and upper secondary schools.6 Both tools are free, publicly owned, and managed at the central level. Both systems use a unique and longitudinal National Student Identifier (Identifiant National Étudiant, or INE), enabling to follow students across time and to link them to their teachers, and to teacher-given grades. They display analytics dashboards, fed with real time information, which are accessible to administrators at the central level and to school principals at the institutional level.
In primary education, Onde is available in two versions: Onde mairie and Onde échanges. Onde mairie proposes a more comprehensive sets of functionalities for municipalities and for primary schools that have no learning management system. This extra module allows them to manage enrolments, exchange student information with school principals, and ensure that all children are enrolled in compulsory obligation. Primary schools that already use an LMS, typically licensed from a commercial provider, must have it approved by the ministry before they can use the Onde échanges module, whose role is to transfer student data in real time from their tool to the central services.
In secondary education, SIECLE also consists of a set of modules that combines the functionalities of: a student information system, which allows access to and requests from the national school-student database (Base Élèves Etablissements); a learning management system, with the Siecle Vie scolaire module that displays tools and analytics dashboards on student attendance, sanctions, etc.); a customer relationship management system (to exchange with parents via text message, email or phone); and various administrative function systems, with the GFE (student finance management), Bourse des collèges (scholarship management), and SDO (students’ career choices management) modules. Other modules in SIECLE allow teachers to report their student grades online (Evaluation, LPC, Seveva) and to keep track of their lessons through a digital class register (Cahier de texte).
Compared to their previous generations (Base Élèves in primary education and Sconet in secondary education), both tools are built on open standards and do not require to use other commercial systems such as Microsoft’s. Data management and server hosting are devolved to the French academies (i.e., regional education authorities), in compliance with data protection and security standards.
In addition to, or instead of, Onde and SIECLE, schools can choose to use an Espace Numérique de Travail (ENT) (Digital Working Environment) to fulfil the functions of a learning management system. Those systems are provided by regions, départements, and municipalities. Some of them are developed publicly, for example the Toutatice ENT in the Britany region while others are acquired from commercial providers, such as OpenENT, OpenNEO, Classe numérique, etc. The ministry has published and continuously revises its “Blueprint for ENT”, which defines a common architecture, expected services, as well as technical standards.7 An ENT’s primary role is to allow all school actors (principals, teachers, students, parents) to access, through a single sign-on (SSO) login, a unique platform to communicate, exchange, and retrieve digital resources for teaching and learning. As such, all ENTs typically offer communication tools, provide a repository for learning content, and are made interoperable with other administrative and learning systems at the level of the school. Most ENTs are also interoperable with PRONOTE, a commercial tool widely used in France that supports school staff’s management of teacher-given grades, students’ timetable, attendance, sanctions, mailing, communication with parents, etc. A majority of lower secondary and upper secondary schools now use an ENT or another digital tool that fulfils the extended functions of an LMS. Most primary schools, however, typically use systems that simply feature customer relationship management to communicate with parents.
Admission and guidance
The French ministry of education also provides two digital tools to manage student admission at the central level. First, Affelnet (AFFectation des Eleves par le NET, or “online student admission”) is the platform used for managing the enrolment process of lower secondary school students into upper secondary schools.8 In addition to students’ preferences, regional academies use criteria such as students’ place of residence, academic achievements, and status of scholarship-holder to determine their affectation into upper secondary schools that match their study choices. To transition from upper secondary education to higher education, all students have to submit their study wishes on another platform, Parcoursup.9 Following a unique national calendar, students in their last year of secondary education must use this platform to fill in a single application file, consult the 21 000 post-secondary education study tracks on offer, formulate wishes for the ones they prefer, receive admission proposals after their application has been examined, and prepare for their enrolment into their next educational institution. Parcoursup relies on non-AI-based algorithms to sort out applications based on certain criterion (e.g., scholarship status) and to transfer those applications back and forth between the institutions and their candidates; however, Parcoursup in itself neither reviews nor ranks students’ applications: this remains managed by post-secondary education institutions themselves, using their own selection criteria. This can be seen as a “matching” platform.
While students (and parents) receive study and career guidance on Parcoursup during their application process to higher education, a dedicated website can be consulted to this effect, provided by the Office National d’Information sur les Enseignements et les Professions (ONISEP) (the “National Information Office about Study paths and Careers”). The ONISEP produces and shares information on studies and careers through different means and channels: online resources, video content, online support services, helpdesk, iLibrary, etc.10 In 2022, as part of the France 2030 digital strategy, the ministry and ONISEP have also initiated the Avenir(s) (“Future(s)”) programme that aims to improve the process of study and career choices by helping students identify their skills and have more agency and ownership on their lifelong learning.
Assessments and credentials
The ministry has developed the Cyclades tool to assist schools with the administration of examinations. Since June 2021, schools have been able to scan and digitise the baccalauréat (French end-of-high-school exam) and other high-stake exams’ response sheets, filled in by students with paper and pencils, so that teacher-graders can grade them online, annotate students’ responses, and leave comments that students can access almost instantly after the results of the exams.
The Application de Suivi des Passations (ASP) is another tool developed by the ministry to support the administration of assessment. In contrast with Cyclades though, the ASP role is to support school staff in the administration of the national student assessments in French and mathematics.11 From lower secondary education onward, students take those evaluations digitally.
All national diplomas awarded since 2003 are digitalised on diplome.gouv.fr, a digital credential system that delivers certified digital certificates and allows third parties to verify the authenticity of a person’s diploma through a digital key.12
Digital ecosystem for teaching and learning
The ministry provides digital resources for teaching and learning, which schools, teachers and students can use and complete with external resources of their choice.
Open-access resources
Some of the resources publicly provided by the ministry are available to anyone in France, whether enrolled in the education system or not. For instance, France Television (the French public TV channel), the Centre for Media and Information Literacy (CLEMI), the ministry of culture, the ministry of education and youth have developed the joint Lumni educational platform.13 On Lumni, everyone has access, for free, to more than 10 000 learning resources in all subjects of the national primary, lower secondary and upper secondary curriculum. Resources range from video to audio contents, games, quizzes, and articles. Lumni is typically addressed to students who want to delve deeper in – or go beyond – their courses. Teachers can also use up to 3 000 verified resources to prepare, illustrate or enrich their lessons. Lumni’s resources are accessible through schools’ digital working environment (ENT). Although it provides contents that target more post-secondary education, the ministry of higher education and research has also supported the development of a MOOC platform called France Université Numérique (FUN) (“France Digital University”). It can be used by teachers as well as French citizens to learn about specific subjects.
Since 2016, everybody in France can self-assess their digital literacy through Pix, a public platform designed by government departments.14 Pix is free and open source. On average, it allows 75 000 users per day to self-assess and improve their digital competences and has now delivered more than 3 million digital certificates. Pix has been partly financed by the European Union’s NextGenerationEU programme and is also used in the French-speaking Community of Belgium.
Closed-access resources
France also publicly provides digital resources exclusively for teachers and students enrolled in the education system. Teachers have notably access to the resources curated on the Réseau CANOPÉ (“CANOPÉ Network”) operated by the ministry.15 Initiated as an online platform for teacher development, and in particular for training for and with digital tools, Canopé now comprises a rich set of digital tools and services: Canotech for in-service teacher training, m@gistère for tutoring, BSD for accessing a bank of best teaching practices, extraclass for podcasts on the teaching profession, TICE for integrating digital practices in teaching, Munaé for exploring the history of education in France, Quizinière for creating interactive digital activities, Etincel for accessing resources on technological and industrial education, viaéduc and eTwinning to exchange with peers respectively at the national and European levels, etc.
French teachers also have access to publicly provided digital tools that help them create their own digital education resources (see Édu-up) or that build on AI to help them teach fundamental subjects like French and mathematics in primary school (see the P2IA projects).16
The ministry also supports and promotes digital initiatives that are launched at the regional level. For instance, in 2016 the Versailles académie launched Éléa, a version of Moodle for teachers allowing them to design and integrate digital learning features into students’ digital working environment (ENT), which makes practices such as flipped classroom or learning gamification easier to implement.17 The Éléa-Moodle platform is now being progressively rolled out. From 2025 onwards, the Éléa-Moodle platform will be available in all French académies.
The ministry may also resort to public-private partnerships to ensure a central provision of teaching and learning resources. In 2016, a public tender resulted in the development of several Banks of Educational Digital Resources for School (BRNE) by French publishers and EdTech companies. The BRNE provide access to thousands of digital teaching and learning resources, tools for creation, and services for dissemination and interaction between teachers and students. Thanks to the strong relationships developed between the ministry and contractors during the procurement phase, publishers were able to fully align the BRNE’s pedagogical content with the French national curriculum in all disciplines and grades. The BRNE were instrumental in ensuring education continuity during the COVID-19 crisis as they were made available to everyone, for free, in less than a fortnight.18
Overall, through the open-access or closed-access platforms, students have accessed to a wealth of publicly provided static and interactive digital learning resources, including resources for students with special needs, and to virtual classroom environments (e.g., the classes virtuelles (“virtual classrooms”) hosted by the Centre national d’enseignement à distance (“National Centre for Distance Education”), or CNED). Teachers have access to more virtual classroom environments for training or peer-learning activities, notably through the apps.education.fr national portal.19
Taxonomy
Digital resources available on the public educational platforms are classified according to a national taxonomy for learning resources: ScoLOMFR.20 ScoLOMFR is the educational adaptation of the LOMFR standards, published in 2006. Digital learning resources are encoded through a given XML format and characterised by a common set of descriptors (Learning Object Metadata, or LOM), such as their type, interactivity level, typical age range, language, etc., which facilitates teachers’ (and students’) search, consultation, use, and sharing of pedagogical resources. The ScoLOMFR taxonomy is also applied in the French-speaking Community of Belgium.
Access, use and governance of digital technologies and data in education
Ensuring access and supporting use
Equity of access
France pays attention to ensuring equity of access and use throughout the digitalisation of its education system. Rules and guidelines establish that centrally provided resources – the bulk of publicly available resources in France – must be available to everyone enrolled in the public education system. Regional authorities and inspectorates in the académies are responsible for ensuring equitable access when relaying and implementing education policies from the central level to the local ones – except when digital tools are first piloted at a lower scale in a handful of schools. In particular, regional authorities were consulted to design the “Core digital equipment” framework mentioned above, which establishes a shared definition for a minimum set of high-quality foundational resources that all schools should have at least access to. This mechanism helps ensure that local variations in terms of access to hardware infrastructure have a lower bound.
There can still be strong variations across and within regions, for example between primary, lower and upper secondary schools as investment in equipment depend on different local governments. Data collected by the OECD TALIS study across the 2017/2018 school year illustrate the pre‑pandemic access to digital hardware infrastructure across schools in France.21 Before the COVID‑19 outbreak, 30% of lower secondary principals reported that their schools’ capacity to provide quality instruction was hindered by shortage or inadequacy of digital technology for instruction (compared to 25% on average across the OECD countries), and 28% of them noted that it was hindered by insufficient Internet access (while 19% was the average across the OECD countries). Several programmes have aimed at closing the investment gaps observed between more or less wealthy municipalities, departments, and regions by financing between 30 and 75% of primary, lower secondary or upper secondary schools’ digital infrastructure – public and government-dependant schools alike.22 Particular attention is given to schools from low socio-economic or rural areas, and to students with special needs.
Supporting the use of digital tools and resources
In France, the ministry considers that, without specific action, digital tools take between three and five years from deployment to training to achieve consistent use. To accelerate their uptake, the ministry uses direct and indirect incentives to support the access to, and use of, digital tools and resources at the system, school, and classroom levels.
First, the government sometimes mandates the use of specific digital tools, typically digital tools for system and institutional management (e.g., Onde and SIECLE as student information systems, Affelnet and Parcoursup for the management of student admission).
Second, the government directly procures digital tools on behalf of schools. Procurements are generally conducted by the ministry and its agencies, such as the CANOPÉ Network; but other public institutions such as the Banque des territoires (“regional bank”) may also fulfil that role. The 2016 public tender that resulted in the development of the Banks of Educational Digital Resources for School (BRNE) by French publishers and EdTech companies is a good illustration of such public-private partnerships.
Recent projects such as the resource account (“compte ressources”) have also aimed at giving schools (and teachers) more autonomy to procure additional digital tools and resources at their discretion – or at the discretion of their local authorities, in the case of primary schools. To accompany schools in their procurement choices, the ministry has set up the Gestionnaire d’Accès aux Ressources Numériques (GAR) (“Digital Resources Access Manager”), a publicly operated interface between schools and (commercial) EdTech providers.23 Through this interface, the ministry imposes criteria on the purchase of digital tools and resources with regard to equity of access, interoperability, and security. The ministry delivers a security label to resources provided by EdTech firms on the GAR catalogue.24 Individuals and organisations are also encouraged to develop new digital tools and resources that comply with data protection, privacy and accessibility requirements. Projects that meet those criteria may receive subsidies through the Edu-Up plan.25 In addition to guiding and procurement criteria, the ministry provides general guidance to schools related to their procurement practices.26
Finally, the ministry provides central and local assistance on the use of the digital tools and resources. A network of local education advisers (Délégués académiques au numérique [DAN]) liaise with local authorities and companies on digital education matters and lead actions and teacher networks around the uses of digital resources in education. Beyond advising the academies’ leaders, they develop projects, training and share and mobilise knowledge for teachers to become more active in the use of digital tools for learning. In the outset of the COVID-19 crisis, they notably ensured a quick transition to online distance schooling by lending and delivering computers to students, mobilising existing repositories of online resources, and providing online training and sharing best practices on the use of digital tools with teachers and school principals.27
Certain digital tools have received priority efforts from the ministry to support their deployment and use. This has most notably been the case of the LMSs (ENT), with positive results: the 2022 mapping conducted by the ministry showed that 90% of lower and secondary schools use an LMS, as well as a growing proportion of primary schools – a significant increase compared to previous monitoring.28
Cultivating the digital literacy of education stakeholders
France aims to engage all education actors in the digital transformation of its education system and to develop teachers’ digital literacy. The ministry encourages teachers to acquire competencies regarding the use of digital technology for teaching as part of both their pre-service and in-service training. In 2019-20, the ministry introduced new ICT-related courses in teacher training for upper secondary level teachers and a new Reference Framework of Digital Competences (Cadre de référence des compétences numériques), defining goals for primary, secondary and tertiary education with end-of-cycle assessments. To ensure their ability to foster students’ ICT skills, new teachers can obtain a corresponding certification via the self-assessment tool PIX-EDU, although this is not a mandatory requirement. In addition, a mandatory three-day training course for all lower secondary teachers was introduced in 2016 and a new programme aims to develop specialist ICT teachers.29
The reform of the national curriculum is another lever through which France indirectly try to foster teachers’ digital literacy. Across all levels of education, the ministry has updated the national curricula with the integration of specific uses of digital technology in class and established the acquisition of digital competencies as a learning outcome. In their end-of-lower-secondary-school exam (the diplôme national du brevet), students must now take and pass the PIX self-assessment to get a digital certification.
Governance of data and digital technology in education
As in other EU countries, the largest part of France’s regulation around the protection of data and privacy, in education as well as in other sectors, is a translation in national law of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR). In education specifically, the ministry has produced specific rules about the protection of personal data and privacy of students, teachers, and school staff as part of its Code de l’éducation (“Education code”).30 As of 2023, those rules are stricter than the GDPR, as they restrict the use of personal data collected by subcontractors and impose their anonymisation throughout their use cycle. Data cannot be processed and utilised to an end different from that for which they were initially collected.
Beyond data protection, France has policies related to the use or management of education data. The ministry works closely with the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL). Initiatives led by the National Union of Publishers (SNE) or by the ministry itself, such as the reference framework for access to learning resources via a mobile device (CARMO), promote the digitalisation of existing resources and their use in the classroom. Specific legislations guarantee that students can take their exams on a digital device should they need it.31 However, the CNIL still discourages the use of proctoring methods to monitor exams. Similarly, the law forbids the use of any automated decision-making system in education. Digital platforms such as Parcoursup, the post-secondary student admission management system, rely on algorithm only to produce automated matching recommendations, but in the end the decision is always taken by humans.
Additionally, France has rules about equitable access to, and use of, data in education for researchers. In 2021, the national research agency (ANR) financed the development of the Innovations, Données et Expérimentations en Éducation (“Innovations, Data and Experimentations in Education” [IDEE]) programme to facilitate the access to, and use of, administrative educational data for researchers under fair and equal conditions.
France has also set up rules to promote interoperability between the different digital tools of the publicly provided ecosystem. Interoperability is one of the key elements of the country’s digital education strategy for 2022-2027. Although not entirely planned out yet, France’s roadmap towards interoperability relies on the use of open standards for technologies and educational data. While giving priority to open-source tools has been enacted as a rule within French government services, as of 2023 it remains a non-binding guideline for schools and teachers, who can still choose proprietary tools that are not open source if they so prefer. France also promotes the use of semantic standards, such as the ScoLOMFR taxonomy for teaching and learning resources (see above), and technical standards such as the HTLM5 and LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) norms for digital learning tools.32 Finally, the ministry engage in international initiatives to promote and facilitate interoperability, notably by participating in the AFNOR committee meetings, a French association that develops and certifies national and international standards and accompanies firms in their adoption.33
France proactively enforces its rules on data protection. Depending on their roles and areas of expertise, the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) – at the national level – and the inspectorates – at the regional level – may monitor, advise, and sometimes sanction educational actors in line with the ministry’s governance on data and digital technology in education. The CNIL conducts regular audits to check EdTech firms’ compliance with the GDPR; and, on a case-by-case basis, a ministry-dependent “ethics committee on data” arbitrates legal issues related to data use.
Supporting innovation and research and development (R‑D) in digital education
Developing a national education technology ecosystem presents challenges both to develop appropriate tools and resources and to incentivise stakeholders to innovate. Providing incentives, supporting R-D, and funding education technology start-ups are part of countries’ typical innovation policy portfolio.
France supports academic research about digital technology in education through several means. First, it funds research programmes specifically on digital education and education data use. For instance, the national Digital Education Agency (DNE) supports Digital Thematic Groups (GTnum) to conduct research on digital education for three years, including on the evolution of teaching practices and training, on access to resources, on the role of AI, and more.34 These groups are led by one or more research centres and supported by regional delegations for digital education (DRANE/DANE). Their aim is to produce studies, surveys, experiments, and research papers documenting the transformation of practices and strategic directions in the field of digital education. For the 2022-2025 period, four Groups work on topics at the intersection between digital education and i) sustainable development challenges, ii) applied research, iii) competencies for lifelong learning, and iv) 21st century skills. In line with the newly released digital education strategy, four new groups will be assembled for the 2023-2026 period.
Second, France clearly communicates its public research and development (R‑D) priorities regarding digital education. Through the ever-evolving Priority Research Programmes and Equipment (PEPR), the National Agency for Research guide and incentivise R‑D to accelerate the deployment of France’s various national strategies – including its strategy for digital education, as exemplified by the National Research Institute for Science and Digital Technologies’ (INRIA) programme on “Education and Digitalisation”.35 Those projects, together with other academic papers on the use of digital technologies to improve learning, student engagement, and assessment, to support teaching, and to help students with special needs, are listed on the “Monitoring and Promotion Notebook for Academic Research on digital education” maintained by the Digital Education Agency (DNE).
The French government also conducts studies to monitor its schools’ digital infrastructure. Most notably, the ministry monitored the deployment of LMSs (ENT) across départements and educational levels. For instance, this mapping exercise showed that, as of 2022, 47 départements (out of 101) reported to have rolled out LMSs in more than 50% of their primary schools; and that nationwide, virtually all lower and upper secondary schools are now equipped with one. EVALuENT further evaluated the uses of LMSs (ENT) in schools. In 2019, it showed that most teachers and school principals (77%) were satisfied with their LMS, and that 49% of them used it at least one a week (against 46% of students – noting that 25% never use it). Teachers and students pointed out that the Internet connectivity in their schools, as well as the platforms’ ergonomics, hindered their efficient use. It also highlighted that the use of the LMS platform has not led to more teacher collaboration within their school – let alone between schools. Way more school principals than teachers or students report that learning resources are easily accessible on their digital working environment, probably highlighting the gap between availability and use.36 Statistics on the procurement and use of digital teaching and learning resources are collected on the Digital Resources Access Manager (GAR) website and are supplemented by surveys undertaken by the ministry’s department of evaluation, prospective studies, and performance (DEPP) at the national level, and by statistical reports on hardware infrastructure collected by regional and local authorities.37
In addition to conducting its own research on the use of digital resources and tools, the ministry has established formal relationships with other education stakeholders, including those from the private sector, to support digital innovation in education. First, the ministry formally engages with the EdTech sector through different initiatives, such as the partenariats d’innovation (“Innovation partnerships”) that bring together EdTech firms, research labs and schools in a co-construction model.38 EdTech France, the country’s association of EdTech firms, is an interlocutor in this partnership.39 Then, the ministry supports collaboration across sectors through non-monetary and monetary incentives. For instance, it facilitates public procurements from start-up companies by applying selection criteria that are less stringent for them than for other companies (on criteria such as cash flow, turnover, or business reputation). The ministry also mobilises public funding that are earmarked for the development of digital learning resources by EdTech organisations, either through public procurements (EUR 41 million were spent until 2022, and EUR 36 million were planned to spend for the years to come) or through subsidies, for instance via the Edu-Up scheme mentioned above.
In its future activities, the ministry envisions to extend and strengthen the provision of online education platforms and digital resources, and to develop classroom analytics tools.
Notes
← 1. 2023-2027 Digital Education Strategy: https://www.education.gouv.fr/strategie-du-numerique-pour-l-education-2023-2027-344263
← 2. France 2030: https://www.economie.gouv.fr/france-2030#
← 3. Socle numérique de base: https://eduscol.education.fr/1066/socles-d-equipement-numerique-definis-en-comite-des-partenaires
← 4. Direction interministérielle du numérique: https://www.numerique.gouv.fr/dinum/
← 5. France Stratégie: https://www.strategie.gouv.fr/thematiques/numerique
← 6. Onde & SIECLE Vie scolaire: https://eduscol.education.fr/1081/l-application-onde & https://eduscol.education.fr/1084/siecle-vie-scolaire
← 7. Schéma Directeur des ENT: https://eduscol.education.fr/1559/schema-directeur-des-ent-sdet-version-en-vigueur
← 11. National student evaluations: https://www.education.gouv.fr/l-evaluation-des-acquis-des-eleves-du-cp-au-lycee-12089
← 14. Pix: https://pix.fr/
← 15. Réseau CANOPÉ: https://www.reseau-canope.fr/qui-sommes-nous.html
← 16. Édu-up: https://eduscol.education.fr/1603/le-dispositif-edu | P2IA: https://eduscol.education.fr/1911/l-intelligence-artificielle-pour-accompagner-les-apprentissages-des-fondamentaux-au-cycle-2
← 17. Éléa-Moodle : https://ressources.dane.ac-versailles.fr/ressource/plateforme-moodle-elea?lang=fr
← 18. Education Continuity Stories: https://oecdedutoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/France-Banks-of-educational-digital-resources.pdf
← 21. TALIS : Mending the Education Divide: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/d8a3978a-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/d8a3978a-en#section-d1e11602
← 22. Socle numérique dans les écoles : https://www.education.gouv.fr/plan-de-relance-continuite-pedagogique-lancement-de-l-appel-projets-pour-un-socle-numerique-dans-les-308529
← 23. The GAR : https://gar.education.fr/
← 24. GAR members: https://gar.education.fr/partenaires-gar/
← 26. Procurement guidance: https://eduscol.education.fr/211/acquerir-des-ressources-numeriques-pour-l-ecole
← 27. Education Continuity Stories: https://oecdedutoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/France-DAN.pdf
← 28. EVALuENT: https://eduscol.education.fr/1536/dispositif-d-evaluation-des-usages-des-ent-evaluent?menu_id=1914
← 29. OECD Education Policy Outlook: https://doi.org/10.1787/debad1c1-en.
← 30. Code de l’éducation : https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/texte_lc/LEGITEXT000006071191/
← 32. LTI, developed by IMS Global Learning Consortium: https://www.imsglobal.org/activity/learning-tools-interoperability
← 34. Digital Thematic Groups: https://eduscol.education.fr/2174/enseigner-et-apprendre-avec-la-recherche-les-groupes-thematiques-numeriques-gtnum
← 35. Priority Research Programmes and Equipment: https://anr.fr/fr/france-2030/programmes-et-equipements-prioritaires-de-recherche-pepr/ & https://www.inria.fr/fr/programme-education-numerique-muriel-brunet
← 36. Mapping of ENT roll-out: https://eduscol.education.fr/1567/l-etat-du-deploiement-des-espaces-numeriques-de-travail; EVALuENT: https://eduscol.education.fr/1536/dispositif-d-evaluation-des-usages-des-ent-evaluent?menu_id=1914
← 37. At the national level, see for instance « Le numérique éducatif : que nous apprennent les données de la DEPP ? », Synthèse de la DEPP, n°3, septembre 2021, DEPP ; at the regional level, see for instance the Paris Academie’s « Sondage sur les usages du numérique».
← 38. Innovation partnerships: https://eduscol.education.fr/874/les-partenariats-de-recherche-pour-la-communaute-educative
← 39. EdTech France: https://edtechfrance.fr/