How is protest in France for distance learning?
What happens in France about distance learning. Enrico Martial's article
On Tuesday 6 April, in France, the return to distance learning was problematic, due to connection difficulties, blocked platforms and the large number of students interested, about 12.3 million.
French schools rely on two digital systems that have gone into crisis since the first hour of class. The first is a digital space managed by the Regions (ENT), mostly located in the Ovh cloud . The one at the Roubaix headquarters was the subject of an “incident without consequences” while a widely used platform, “Open Digital Education” would have suffered from the large number of accesses. The result was a general slowdown, particularly in middle schools (the collèges), with difficulties in connecting and protests from teachers, principals and students.
The second system is managed directly by the ministry of education, the National Center for Distance Education (CNED) which has a dedicated and improved service after the difficult beginnings of the first phase of the pandemic, called "Ma classe à ma maison" (my class at home). Around 8 am on April 6, at the beginning of the courses, the system was subjected to a massive attack (DDos) which blocked the communication capacity. It was back to normal only in the evening.
The teaching activity was therefore blocked, where alternative solutions were not used, such as other platforms, from Zoom to Teams by Microsoft, or simply by sending texts and assignments via email or attached to chats. The ministry estimated that out of the 12.3 million students involved, only 500 thousand were online on Tuesday, and that 150 thousand classes were active on the different platforms.
The return to distance learning is quite a novelty for French students, who for the most part continued their school face-to-face. Between 16 February 2020 and 5 March 2021, the opening days of French schools were 182, rather in line with Belgium and Spain, which however had fewer days of vacation, and much longer than the 57 days of school in attendance for Italy, according to data released by Unesco .
Most of the French students are in distance learning only for this week, then they will start the 15 days of the traditional spring break, which have been unified in dates for the whole country. In the fourth week, from 26 April, both elementary and lower secondary schools will be present again. The high school will instead still be a second week in Dad, to return in attendance starting May 3.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/come-si-protesta-in-francia-per-la-didattica-a-distanza/ on Wed, 07 Apr 2021 11:18:57 +0000.