source: Le Monde, 13.07.2014
translation: doxa-louise
translation: doxa-louise
STARTING IN SEPTEMBER, COMPUTER PROGRAMMING WILL
BE OFFERED AT THE PRIMARY LEVEL
Courses covering programing languages will be offered at the primary level
starting this year on an optional basis, announced the Minister of education
Benoît Hamon.
...
ON ACTIVITIES TIME
He is hoping that will be proposed ‘in primary grades an initiation to programming,
as an option and on time reserved for extra-curricular activities. We have launched on the
19th of June an invitation to associations to put together a national offer’.
‘Such an initiation should be part of the curriculum in secondary grades’, according
to the minister, who believes that ‘certain teachers, more naturally than others, could
be pedagogues for code: those from technology and mathematics’.
‘In conjonction we are also introducing, with Arnaud Montebourg, an important program
to develop the french computerized learning industry’ adding that by 2020 70% of students
in primary grades and colleges and 100% of teachers will be equipped with computers and
tablets for computer learning .
Priority in national education goes to ‘ fundamental learning (reading, writing, counting,
calculating, composing and decomposing numbers in mathematics’), but ‘schools can no
longer ignore the importance of digital which intevenes today in all disciplines’ puts
forward Benoît Hamon to justify these advances.
MOVING TO HIGH SPEED
In his view, ‘ it is no longer a question of wether computing and its languages should be taught,
but knowing how, to what ends, and at what level in school this learning should happen’.
‘If mastering French is indispensable to thinking, forming a judgement, expressing
oneself and communicating, mathematics as well as computing are other forms of language,
which teach logical thinking, facilitate the manipulation of concepts. Computing helps
communication within the classroom, stimulates the participation of all, including the less gregarious.’
Given these considerations, the minister also announced that ‘starting in September,
we will be exending through hertzien means high speed internet to 9 000 schools in zones
not covered by fiber. He recalls that ’16 000 schools out of 54 000 do not
presently have access to high speed in France’.
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