Instruction
Education experts are calling for computer science to be a compulsory subject in schools
Smartphones, computers and the Internet are now part of everyday life. The German education system should now follow this development. This is what experts are now calling for in a report.
Education experts from the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK) have called for the introduction of computer science as a compulsory subject in schools throughout Germany. “There is a broad consensus that computer science education is an important component for successful participation in the digitized world and that computer science should therefore be introduced as a compulsory subject in schools,” says a report presented on Monday by the “Standing Scientific Commission” for the KMK. The committee of 16 educational researchers advises the federal states on educational policy issues.
In some federal states computer science is already a compulsory subject, in others it is offered as an option.
The experts are in favor of compulsory teaching of computer science content as part of general studies in elementary school. In her view, there should then be a compulsory subject in middle school, for example with two hours of lessons per week in the 8th and two hours in the 9th grade. The minimum target for the upper school is to reach as many students in computer science as in physics and chemistry.
Computer science in schools is just one topic in the comprehensive report. It provides “recommendations for action from kindergarten to university” and deals, for example, with children’s digital media education, so that they can learn how to use digital media creatively and critically at the same time. Despite great progress during the corona pandemic, there is still an urgent need for action in digitization in the education system, said the chairman of the commission, Olaf Köller, on Monday.