Priority of the french national network in microelectronics and nanotechnologies towards the attractiveness of young high-schoolers

Abstract

It is well known that during the last fifteen years, a strong decrease of interest of the young pupils and high-schoolers for exact sciences was observed in the major part of Europe. A way to invert this trend consists in educating young generations in microelectronics, microtechnology and nanotechnologies, a specific topic of the electrical and information engineering. The Higher Education in these fields is organized in France through a network (GIP-CNFM) that coordinates the 12 regional interuniversity centres that have facilities as well in technological processes as in design of microelectronics devices and circuits. The main role of the GIP-CNFM is to harmonize and financially support the activities of the 12 centres essentially involved in higher education. But new objectives concern the attractiveness of young high-schoolers by the way of the organization of special sessions of for them as well for their teachers (educators), by the way of a one-day internship of training courses, scheduled on the facilities of the technological platforms. Since 2009, several experiments in this scheme have been setup through the GIP-CNFM network. Thanks to these prioneering experiments, several tens of secondary classes were brought to a better knowledge of microelectronics and nanotechnologies impact on science, technology and daily life.