Reviewed Papers
COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION IN PERÚ:
A NEW KIND OF MONSTER?
Juan M. Gutiérrez Ian D. Sanders
Sociedad Peruana de Computación School of Computer Science
Lima, 21, Peru University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
wits.gutierrez@gmail.com Wits, 2050, South Africa
ian@cs.wits.ac.za
Abstract: Peruvian law requires that prospective school teachers be graduates of institutions which focus on preparing
them into the pedagogical aspects of teaching. Unfortunately in the area of computing we believe that the prospective
teachers do not receive enough subject specific training. In addition, the legal requirement means that CS graduates,
without teaching qualifications, are disadvantaged if they attempt to become teachers. The result is that computer
science education in high schools has become sterile and uninteresting. We provide an analysis of the academic status
of these future teachers, with recommendations geared towards academic and curricular change in this area.
Categories and Subject Descriptors: K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education: Computer Science
Education and Information Systems Education
General Terms: Human Factors, Management
Keywords: K-12 Curriculum, Computer Science Education, Prospective Teachers
1. INTRODUCTION 2. BACKGROUND
According to Peruvian law, prospective school teachers Since the actual educational law in Perú came into effect, it
must be graduates of educational institutions that has been expected that for the teaching of courses related to
specifically prepare them for that purpose. In the field of Computer Science at schools, the prospective teacher
computer science we believe that the current situation is not should have graduated from institutes oriented to the
benefiting the students or the discipline. In our opinion formation of teachers in this area or from Faculties of
there are two reasons for this. Prospective teachers are not Education within universities. The Ministry of Education
given appropriate subject specific training; and graduate in Perú, is the organization that defines the curricula for the
professionals of careers other than education, such as teaching of careers oriented to the preparation of
Computer Science, Engineering or others, who possess prospective teachers of CS in schools, within this we can
great expertise in their specialties, and could be good see some acute problems in the present documentation for
teachers are typically at a disadvantage compared with their this career, e.g. issues concerning the lack of relationships
teaching-qualified peers because they do not have the between topics, career guidance related to an application
teaching certification. field, poor differentiation of CS from IT, an inadequate
In Perú, we have only three levels at school, whose are preparation of the prospective teachers: ranging from
similar to the ones in [13], these are: kindergarten, children intermediate to advance levels in CS, and the fact that some
from 2 to 5 years old; primary school (6 levels) and core courses are missing.
secondary school (5 levels). Note also that the courses in Different projects have been made relative to hardware
which CS or IT are taught are compulsory ones, so the or laboratory implementations as a way to help for the
problem mentioned in [2, 10 et al] about a lack of students continuous training of these prospective lecturers, but there
is ignored in this article. are little modifications of the curricular axes or the contents
In the remainder of the paper we focus on the problem that are taught to them.
concerning the teaching of CS topics at high school. Taking
into account the spirit of the recommendations for the 3. SCHOOL EDUCATIONAL REALITY
ACM K-12 [11], we make some analysis and The problem of a low level education in CS at school is a
recommendations about the teaching of these topics. phenomenon that occurs in other countries. Problems found
in Taiwan about the lack of integration of programming
into the curricula of the K-9 and failures due to the teaching
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of software packages oriented to the technical part with not to the teaching of algorithms. The result is easily
almost no algorithmic teaching [8] have proven to be a predictable: a lot of students lose interest in CS
common issue. In Argentina [13] e.g. there is a problem because they do not see when or where they could
similar to the one encountered in Perú: either the teachers apply the taught topics or they see that CS is learning a
do not have subject knowledge or they do not have training lot of awkward syntax. This, in the long run, will have
in educational pedagogy. a negative impact on the student, who will rapidly lose
A decreasing interest for taking courses oriented to CS interest in the field.
in North American schools [2,11 et al] and curricula 2. When we observe the current curricula proposed for
changes detected in other parts of the world, are only some the prospective teachers in Perú, we notice that the
examples that show us a major problem: how to encourage misconception of CS is given in the early stages of
students to find CS courses attractive at school level. Also their career; so they will carry them to the primary and
how to interrelate the concepts learned with other topics secondary levels of the schools that they will be
from the chosen college career, whether it has some assigned. Having a quick look at the feelings of the
relationship with CS or not. The reality is different in Perú, students is we notice that the pupils get a false
because even though we have a bad definition of terms [1], expectation of what is going to be taught in a CS-
the interest for following these careers is currently oriented course, this provokes an initial burst of
increasing each year. interest that rapidly diminishes. This lack of interest is
We also see that a lot of problems mentioned in [11] increased by a problem of communication between the
exist in Perú, e.g. the lack of connection between the students and the lecturer; the lecturer thinks,
Education Ministry and international partners that could mistakenly, that the students will have the same
help in the development of CS curricula. There is no policy interest that he/she had when studying the career of
that encourages experimental teaching programs, or making CS; and the students only see this course as a
textbooks oriented to the lecturing of CS or IT inside the compulsory one that they must complete, that seems to
schools. A quick look at some current CS books for schools have no relevance in their future career, no application
found in any library shows us that they are oriented to end- in real life situations and with concepts that are of far
user software, so the courses focus on using computers to less importance than other “core” courses.
perform some limited tasks; and do not show the real 3. The current orientation that is given by this curricula
problem-solving power that is behind CS that could prove and according to [11] is a definite trend to IT, but only
valuable to any student. taking into account the part relative to skills. We found
that even though there is this orientation, the
4. CURRICULAR PROBLEMS orthogonal axes are essentially ignored. In the axis of
In considering the themes depicted for the teaching of Concepts we have a lack of background in many topics
computing in secondary level according to the directive e.g. Computer Organization, Abstraction and
given by the Ministry of Education in Perú, we identify a Modeling, Algorithmic Thinking, among others. Also
number of potential problems, these are: is not considered the Capacity axis: Complexity
1. There is a clear tendency for the use of software Management and Proofs, where these capacities will be
applications, but not for the teaching of an algorithmic seen only in a theoretical way or not lectured at all. As
way of thinking. This type of misconception about the a consequence it is easy to see that the prospective
true nature of CS is viewable in [10]; that shows how teacher will not have a good orientation to the future
the students believe that CS is learning how to use courses that he will be assigned to.
software packages or how to master the skills of a 4. There is a deficient interrelation between the diverse
particular programming language. These types of topics planned, making a lot of them appear as
issues are observed in the teaching of CS at schools in information islands. A coherent relation between each
our country where it is oriented to the lecturing of one of the topics is a must.
proprietary software tools and with a minimum effort 5. There is no adequate planning of the topics and
to encourage students, especially woman, to follow a activities to be taken into the pedagogy section of the
particular field of CS when they graduate. current curricula. Constructivism and active learning
When the lecturer, mistakenly, orients the CS course to seem a valuable alternative, but in the long run, and
the teaching of software packages, he will always find mainly for a lack of management of a classroom, the
a group of students who have already taken these chosen model becomes a passive one, with minimum
courses outside of the school. Something similar, but to participation from the students. The lecturer must also
lesser extent could happen if the orientation is consider that there are a lot of concepts which could be
programming. In this case, in addition, a lack of taught without the need of a computer in an active and
knowledge of basic concepts and an incorrect fun way [3].
perception of the field, means lectures end up being 6. Sections referred to topics such as: History, Ethics of
oriented mainly to studying the hard part of the syntax, Computing, Limits of Computation, and Computing
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and Society are almost nullified inside the interior of 3. There should be a more fluent relationship and
the curriculum or taken only as theoretical points of involvement between universities and colleges. So that
view. a CS university professor should bring his/her insights
7. Even if the teacher chooses to prepare their material to the topics that the prospective teacher plans to
such that their classes are oriented to IT rather than CS, lecture [6]
its relevance and skills of the prospective teacher goes 4. An increased effort to make good use of workshops
far beyond for what is proposed in the current inside the institutions that produce the prospective
curricula. If we want to prepare our students to have a teachers [2] is needed. In this way the teachers will be
strong technical base, as could be justified by the more prepared and will have an adequate feedback
existence of these courses, then there is the need of from other colleagues.
certification programs oriented to the industry, such as 5. Efforts should be made to increase the interest for CS
A+ Certified Technician, CIW, among others [11]. courses via the teaching of topics oriented to real life,
8. In Perú a person who would like to follow a e.g. analyze problems in bioinformatics, multimedia,
professional career in education is required to have robotics and so on. For this approach to work, the
adequate certification in the field. This concept has prospective teachers would need to have an adequate
degenerated over time resulting in the fact that CS interest in research and to feel interested in doing it as
lecturers will actually receive little or no specific well. This particular requirement should be reinforced
background in CS topics, so their courses are only into the curricula followed. So the CS school teacher
oriented to the pedagogical aspects of teaching. should have and be trained in a dynamic way of
9. The lecturers are put into the working force as soon as thinking.
they graduate from the pedagogical institute or An interesting perspective is the research done in [12],
university. This contradicts the suggestions made in [6] where a set of questions were posed to a group of
to give more relevance to the practicum. Another factor postgraduate students in HCI, the point being to
is that there is often very little communication between determine what motives encouraged those students to
the current CS teacher at school and the prospective follow this career, considered a little distance from the
one. This occurs mainly because; the new teacher CS core. The interesting result from this study is that is
enters as a replacement of the former one; leaving no possible to manage the interest from the students to
useful feedback about the future students, trends and so areas relatively close to CS, which in the end could
on. In the unusual case that this communication takes result in a diverse and dynamic interest in other areas.
place it is most often only about administrative topics. 6. The teaching of ethical and social issues [7] should not
be taken out of the prospective teacher’s curricula. This
5. RECOMMENDATIONS is something not to be superficially considered as long
The recommendations that we make address the problems as Perú is recognized as one of the countries with the
discussed above are: highest rates in software piracy. Projects oriented to
1. Textbooks oriented to the teaching of specific topics in diminishing some academic issues, such as plagiarism
CS at school should be prepared. Such books should and research misconduct, should also be addressed.
emphasize the algorithmic and problem solving nature 7. Academic background of the future lecturer in CS
of the discipline. The majority of books that exist in should not be considered as a trivial one, some authors
our country for the secondary level are oriented at a [4] take this situation one step further, and suggest that
technical level or toward the syntactic level of a these prospective teachers should have a master’s
program rather to an algorithmic approach. A move degree in a specific field of CS. We accept that in the
away from such books is important. current situation this is infeasible, but suggest making
2. Even though is not mandatory to know a priori which the first steps to this direction by including a strong
programming tool should be used, the authors would research component into the lecturer’s curricula; a
like to recommend the use of tools that should be easy good source of material can be found in [4,9].
to program for the new students, e.g. Python could be
an appropriate choice. The reasons to choose an easy to 6. CONCLUSION
learn programming tool are given in diverse studies [5 We are concerned that the education of school CS teachers
et al], also the use of easy programming languages, will could contribute to a decline in the number of students
give the students the possibility to put into practice wishing to pursue tertiary education in CS. Our concerns
many of the ideas covered, without getting involved in stem from a number of points: there is a focus on the
too much syntax. It would be interesting to see which teaching of software applications rather than CS topics;
paradigm would fit better into the primary and teaching of programming focuses on the syntax of specific
secondary education, but that goes beyond the scope of programming languages rather than on algorithmic
this paper. thinking; the problem solving nature of CS is not
emphasized; the relevance of CS skills to other school
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courses is not emphasized; and there is little numbers of students showing interest in tertiary education
communication between established and new teachers and in CS. These recommendations include textbooks which
between schools and tertiary institutions. We feel that these emphasize the nature of CS rather than the specifics of
factors make the CS school environment something that is packages; a programming language with simple and
unlikely to appeal to students. accessible syntax; increased communication between
In this paper we make some recommendations that we schools and tertiary institutions; and broader and more in-
think will make the school environment more challenging depth education of the school teachers so that they are
and inspiring and that could reverse the trend of declining better equipped to teach their students.
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