may be characterized as Learn to Compute (specialization) and Compute to Learn (integration).

All students—regardless of their special interest, area of expertise, and future profession—need to be educated in informatics and apply those knowledge and skills as an integrated competence in all subjects and professions. In so doing, they must ensure that technological development is directed towards the achievement of a better, safer, fairer, and more just society.

The second tier of the strategy, integrating informatics with other disciplines, has huge educational potential.

Through digital models, subjects can be taught in novel and more engaging ways, and data-driven approaches will open doors to new dimensions of understanding and new ways of learning subjects. Similarly, through programming of, say, simulations and games, knowledge and insight in a subject can be expressed in more individual, novel, useful, and creative ways (instead of the traditional reproduction of knowledge in written or oral form).

By integrating informatics in other disciplines, students are provided the advantage of having an additional novel, specific way of thinking to describe and explain phenomena (often referred to as “computational thinking”), complementing that of other scientific disciplines and contributing to their better, more thorough understanding. This is pursued even in STEM, for example, Weintrop, 16 and K– 12 SF. 14

Implementation

The challenge now for the Informatics for All Committee is to bring about change leading to the realization of the strategy. It is highly unlikely that the recommendations will simply be mandated; rather, a carefully considered approach that leads toward the acceptance of the recommendations seems far more realistic.

The implementation problem has
to be addressed within each coun-
try where responsibility for educa-
tion resides. Within each country,
groups consisting of administrators,
academics, teachers, industrialists,
There are different areas of re-
sponsibility and different possible
activities within these areas:

Education authorities. Administrators have responsibility for the proper recognition of disciplines, and related matters. Accordingly, they have a role in the implementation of certain aspects of the recommendations:

˲ recognition of informatics as a science,

˲ the education of teachers of informatics, and

˲ the education of all teachers.

Curriculum development (includes pupils and parents). Within the CECE report, there are comments that suggest current informatics curricula are not uniformly popular with pupils and their parents. For informatics to be a discipline taken by all, there is a need to review and revise (and in some cases, design) curricula to ensure the discipline is considered an essential one for the 21st century by all stakeholders, including students and their parents.

The motivation of students must be heightened dramatically; all students, including the best students, must see informatics as highly relevant. The curriculum is predominantly technical in nature, and has to capture the essence of the discipline, emphasizing the relevance to people and society in general and to the young in particular, thus including fundamental issues with the practical and more theoretical aspects being carefully interwoven. To motivate students, attention can be drawn to creativity, innovation, and applications, and the massive impact these have on society, particularly highlighting the use of big/deep data, Internet of Things, and developments in machine learning and their impact on the ‘future of work.’

Role of higher education. Within higher education institutions (HEI), expertise should be mobilized to support the development of competence and capacity. There are four main aspects:

The emphasis
of the report is
on informatics
education, with
informatics seen
as the science
underpinning the
development of the
digital world—a
distinctive discipline
with its own
scientific methods,
its own ways of
thinking, and its
own technological
development.