The new computer science examination program is now active in all year levels of havo/vwo. That makes it a good time to give my opinion on it. I worked with it myself, saw the struggles of the publishers, spoke to other teachers and experienced the program as a state examiner. A note in advance: there is no negative story here but the point is that the student should be more central.
Because that learner has not been central to:
- Establishing the scientific basis;
- Creating the teaching materials;
- The role of secondary education in relation to further education;
- The position of the computer science teacher/section in schools.
First of all, the new program notices that SLO (Foundation for Curriculum Development; the national center of expertise to develop curricula) has taken a scientific route. Now that I have been working with the material, I do and do not understand this choice. I understand it because the scientific route lays the foundation for the subject and that is excellent; it certainly improved the theoretical foundation. But where this program falls short is that it ignores the target audience.
The student does not warm to this scientific approach. As a result, it takes considerably more effort to get the student to engage with the material. This is also in the range of the teaching materials. The theory is abstract and, in addition, the assignments are not very challenging. It sometimes seems, and I have heard this from the authors involved, that creating challenging assignments is experienced as very difficult. And this is another negative consequence of this scientific basis: the distance to secondary education is rather increased.
Professors of computer science such as Jan Friso Groote and Marko van Eekelen have criticized the subject of computer science in secondary education before. SLO, in cooperation with the professional association I&I, has made a serious attempt to give computer science education a helping hand, but the question of why the average student chooses computer science has always remained underexposed.
