Page 48 - Getting the Picture Modeling and Simulation in Secondary Computer Science Education

Chapter 2
also show large variations as well, for example, Build a Company Website; Make a Database for the Administration of a Football Club; Build a User-Friendly Interface for an Information System; and from the first author’s own classroom: utilize the debating skills acquired in language classes to debate a particular ethical issue concerning IT.
This diversification and growth are not surprising in a discipline undergoing such rapid changes and new developments, and so now is a good time to pose the question: where do we go from here?
2.2.3 Discussions
Concerns about the future of CS education in Dutch secondary education were reflected in a number of discussions that were going on at that moment, in the first decade of this millennium. One of the hot issues was the question of whether or not to introduce a national exam. In the 2007 report on the implementation of the CS course (Schmidt, 2007), a survey of CS teachers reported the following results:
Answer
As far as I am concerned, a national exam is out of the question
As far as I am concerned, a national exam is only to be considered under strict conditions I am not an advocate of a national exam, but I’m not against it either
I can see the advantages of a national exam
I truly believe in a national exam
Table 2: CS teachers’ survey results on the question of a national exam
Score
29.2% 26.1% 16.9% 13.8% 13.8%
46
When asked about their reasons, the great majority of those opposing answered that they feared losing the freedom to design the content of the subject they taught, followed by the argument that CS was not a prerequisite for any subsequent study at the higher-education level. The advocates of a national exam posited that it might help strengthen the position of this school subject in the curriculum alongside all the other school subjects. They also felt that it would lessen the differences in the levels of accomplishment found in students. As a result, higher education would have a better picture of what to expect from first-year students who had taken CS during secondary education. The advocates assumed that only about sixty percent of the subject matter needed to be examined by means of a national exam, because only a limited number of curriculum terms were suitable for practical examination. Furthermore, aspects of the curriculum, such as cooperation, task-