France - AFNOR

Activities:

Most important initiatives:

Actions taken by AFNOR are primarily for higher education and focus on:

- Conferences in higher education institutions (public and students)
- Training of teachers who, in turn, train their colleagues and their students
- Integration of standardization into teacher reference manuals
- Access to standards at preferential rates
- Development of educational resources for teachers

Actions at the secondary education level focus on technique and technological training, in partnership with the national education authority. No action has been engaged in primary education.

Agreements exist with the following organizations:

Relationships exist with these organizations:

In 2008, AFNOR engaged in actions towards higher education. Three agreements were signed with the principal actors of higher education for setting up an action plan.

Types of agreements with these organizations:

The agreement with the Ministry of Education focuses on

1. Developing education on standardization
- integrating standardization into teaching manuals
- developing a national network of relay trainers: the teachers trained by AFNOR train their peers
- developing suitable tools for teaching standardization
2. Promoting access to standards ("SagaWeb Education"): Preferential rates for accessing the collection of French standards
3. Communication
4. Driving deployment of the approach

Impact of initiatives in figures:

Number of schools or students reached: The signed agreement concerns 3400 institutions (including higher education).This figure includes actions taken at the secondary and higher education levels (difficult to identify data for secondary education only).
Number of teacher associations involved: 1300 teachers have been trained: - 221 teachers have followed training on standardization at AFNOR - 1069 teachers have been trained by their peers.
Other indicators: A Website devoted to teachers gives access to 120 teaching materials. At January 2013, there were 4251 subscribers, including teachers from higher education. 283 institutions have access to Sagaweb Education (access to standards). The integration of standardization into certain programmes (Baccalaureat level).

Impact on public authorities, stakeholder groups or others:

Awareness of the importance of standards: The results, to date, are too difficult to assess given that the actions are recent and spread out.

Materials for primary and secondary education in France

Title / Abstract Types Lang
Teacher's space
A space for teacher's on the AFNOR Website.
Targets: Teachers, Secondary school students, Other
 Teaching case, Presentation, Cartoon or picture series, Teacher guide French