Informatics Education at Austria’s Lower Secondary Schools Between Autonomy and Standards

Abstract

The present state of informatics education at lower secondary schools in Austria is the result of many single autonomous decisions which have been made locally at schools. The Austrian Ministry of Education has left it to schools to define their profiles and to decide about the amount of imparting informatics to their pupils who are aged between 10 and 14 years. This paper gives a short historical overview and some insight into the present dialectic process between autonomy and the upcoming issue of educational standards. A recently conducted evaluation project in Carinthia/Austria, which can be considered as representative for related current studies in Austria, is presented. Empirical research is important. It perfectly fits the ongoing shift from input orientation to output measuring. Whereas other traditional subjects as (foreign) languages or mathematics are based on solid, historically developed fundaments, the comparatively new field of informatics at schools is still looking for stable frameworks. Considering the newest developments, we can be optimistic to achieve a reasonable solution for improving informatics education at lower secondary schools in Austria. Hopefully the announced educational standards in informatics will help to decrease the digital divide among our pupils.