Informatics Education: Europe cannot afford to miss the boat [Full PDF report]
Informatics Europe and ACM Europe’s work on the matter of Informatics education in schools date back to 2012. The first outcome of this work was the landmark report “Informatics Education: Europe cannot afford to miss the boat“, published in 2013.
This report was developed by a group of experts from academia and industry representing the two principal scientific societies in the field, Informatics Europe and ACM Europe, and covering a broad range of disciplines, experiences and countries. It builds on the considerable body of educational research and experimentation on digital literacy and informatics education developed over the past decades in Europe, the US and elsewhere. The report defines a blueprint for digital literacy and informatics curricula adapted to the European context, and explains why such curricula are critical to the economic health of European countries.
The report highlights that Informatics education, unlike digital literacy education, is sorely lacking in most European countries. The situation has paradoxically worsened since the 70s and 80s. Not offering appropriate informatics education means that Europe is harming its new generation of citizens, educationally and economically. Unless Europe takes resolute steps to change that situation, it will turn into a mere consumer of information technology and miss its goal of being a major player. Informatics education must become, along with digital literacy, an obligatory part of general education.
Specific recommendations follow from the analysis and the work of the committee. For brevity here we have summarized them in four recommendations, which are detailed in the full report:
Download the full report: “Informatics Education: Europe cannot afford to miss the boat”