Informatics Reference Framework for School
Michael E. Caspersen, Ira Diethelm, Judith Gal‐Ezer, Andrew McGettrick, Enrico Nardelli, Don Passey, Branislav Rovan, Mary Webb
Abstract
The contribution that informatics has made since \nthe last century has fuelled innovative and significant technological advances and vice versa. It makes \nfundamental contributions to current economic, \neducational, industrial and social development. \nInformatics importantly has the capacity to \nsupport and augment human reasoning and \npotential. Education systems have a responsibility \nto recognise this and to ensure that young people \nare equipped to be able to drive forward, judge \ninnovation and take part in the development of a \njust and fair society. \nTo properly embrace this development by society \nin general, informatics has to be seen as an essential \naspect of the education of all pupils. The present \nreport, which outlines an informatics reference \nframework for all young people, bears that in mind. \nIt is intended to offer high-level guidance that \nmay be used by, and indeed stimulate, curriculum \ndesigners to review their focus and approach to the \nsubject of informatics. \nFollowing the introductory sections, the heart of \nthe reference framework is described in section 4. \nA set of aims and objectives for informatics education for all young people is provided in section 4.2 \nfollowed by a set of core concepts and an accompanying brief description of these in Table 1 of section \n4.3; this conveys a robust structure and a general \narchitecture, which captures an essential view of \ninformatics as a discipline in general education. To \ncomplement the general architecture, a contemporary and outward facing view of informatics is \noffered in section 4.4; this includes discussion of \nmodern developments that relate to topics such as \ndata science and artificial intelligence, as well as attention to related ethical concerns. \nAnnex A.1 presents a brief description of informatics as a discipline. Annex A.2 presents a limited \nnumber of examples of how high-level learning outcomes could be described in a concrete curriculum \nat three levels that reflect indicators of outcomes \nafter primary, lower secondary and upper secondary \neducation.