On this matter, OSIA has made a submission to ACARA which can be seen at www.osia.com.au. What OSIA argues is that Computer Science needs to be available to students as a subject in the National Curriculum in its in own right, and notes similar calls in the UK, and USA, and also by some academics in Australia. This will help reverse the decline in enrolment in Computer Science in Australian Universities that has occured in recent years. OSIA also believes that this is critical to the sustained development of the Open Source Software sector in Australia. OSIA anticipates that there may be further opportunities for comments on the National Curriculum in the future. So please feel free to express your views on this here or contact me off list if you prefer. Cheers Daniel (Disclaimer: I am an OSIA Director)
Donna Benjamin <donna@cc.com.au> wrote:
Hang on - Where's computer science? Oh that's right it doesn't exist in the brave new world of the new Australian Curriculum. It's a general capability (ICT) or a "Technology" along with design, woodworking, cooking and agriculture - in a strand called "Digital Technologies" It was more than this when I was in secondary school. Then, at least, everybody did a little programming (in BASIC or Logo). Some of us learned Pascal too. I don't know what the computing subjects in years 11-12 would have entailed, as I didn't choose them.
As to whether computer science is science strictly so-called, I think it's a similar question to whether mathematics is. At university, mathematics tends to have an interesting relationship with both the science faculty and the arts faculty; at some universities it used to be (and perhaps still is) open to arts students and science students, though it was formally part of the science faculty. Computer science tends to be regarded as an engineering discipline.
Irrespective of where it best fits, it belongs in the school curriculum. It lies at the base of much of the technological change that is affecting twenty-first century societies in most of the world. To use the technology effectively and to shape its future requires understanding, and this begins at school.
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