Report of the Spanish Computing Scientific Society on computing education in pre-university stages

Abstract

In recent years, many developed countries have addressed computing education in primary or secondary education. Potential benefits for students in these educational stages and for the society are great, existing a wide range of approaches to such a computing education. The Spanish Computing Scientific Society (SCIE), with the support of the Spanish Board of Deans of Computing Schools (CODDII) created in September 2017 a working group formed by experts in either computing or computing education with the goal of elaborating a report with specific recommendations about this issue for the Spanish government. The report was issued in July 2018 and recommends, in conformance to Spanish educational laws, to establish a matter called “Informatics”. This matter would preferably be implemented as a mandatory course offered from primary to secondary education. Th e course contents comprise six areas: programming, computers and operating systems, networks and the Internet, data, digital content, and security. The course would include issues of both digital literacy and computing as a discipline, with digital literacy contents based on the European DIGCOMP framework.