“Digital technology represents a fundamental change with which we must reckon. It is comparable to the development of the printing press. Digital is the twenty-first century’s Gutenburg.” For Isabelle Bonnal, Director of Education, Youth and Sport in Monaco, the education system must take the plunge and adopt digital tools that help students to learn.
It has been doing so since 2019. As part of Extended Monaco, the Principality’s digital transformation programme, the education sector has embraced digital technology in a big way, introducing coding lessons from nursery school, equipping teachers with computers or tablets and setting up Edulab, a teacher training centre with a focus on innovative teaching tools (virtual reality headsets, 3D printers, educational robots, etc.).
Monaco launched its Digital Secondary School project for lower secondary schools (collèges) in 2020. Every one of the country’s 1,200 lower secondary school pupils has been equipped with a computer or tablet. The new educational resources that have been made available (interactive maps, software for learning languages, mathematics, etc.) will help to develop teachers’ creativity as well as to motivate children and better capture their interest.
The Digital Secondary School project also aims to lighten pupils’ schoolbags by gradually removing the need for physical textbooks. Above all, however, it will offer continuity of education for pupils who are ill or in the event of a further health crisis, since digital technology can help to maintain and refresh the bond between teacher and pupil while enabling social distancing.
The second stage in the digital transition of the Monegasque education system is to extend the project to upper secondary schools (lycées). Monaco has embarked on this stage from late 2021.
This type of digital learning enhances the approach in a number of subjects, such as foreign languages, where it can be used to dub a film, for example (…) The value that digital technology adds in schools can be seen in the twenty-first century digital skills that are acquired.
Frédéric Genta, Country Chief Officer for Attractiveness and the Digital Transition.
