Computer education ‘outdated, damaging’

Press, 10 September 1985, Page 23

Computer education ‘outdated, damaging’

NZPA-AAP Melbourne

Much of the computer training in schools is outdated and damaging, according - to the experts. Professor Arthur Sale, of the department of information science at the University of Tasmania, said that many of the early computing languages such as Fortran, BASIC, COBOL and APL were now thoroughly obsolete and had long been recognised as such by exI perts. Speaking during a seminar on computerisation at the Australian and New Zealand Association for the j Advancement of Science I congress at Monash Univeri sity, Professor Sale said i present-day teaching prac- ! tices of BASIC program- ! ming in schools and the i widespread use of BASIC by i users of personal computers i could be considered serii ously damaging. I “Not only are old and ! deficient computing lani guages being widely dissem-

inated and skills with little long term value encouraged, but languages are also presented as static and immutable objects.” Professor Sale said the general trend of computer science was quite clearlanguages for use by computing professionals should be simple, concise, with well defined syntax and semantics. Dr Christopher Read, of Ord Minnett, Ltd, of Sydney said: “The world of computing is perhaps the most rapidly changing area in the modern world, yet our schools and universities persist in teaching people to use yesterday’s, or at best today’s, technology.” Dr Read said that as a mathematician and an employer of computing personnel, his experience was that mathematics was a far more productive basis for computing professionals than computing science. “I am not advocating the total abolition of any computing education, but I am suggesting that such an edu-

cation should address the real needs of the industry.” The marketing manager of Data General (Australia), Mr Peter Quirk, said that by the time primary school students were completing their tertiary education, concepts of computers and programming would have changed dramatically. ■ “The introduction of biologically programmed materials will revolutionise computers, medicine and the relationship between humanity and machine,” he said.

He said conventional languages might be incapable of expressing the concepts of the biological world. “The question is how do we prepare, the future managers, legislators and politicians for new technology?” He said there was a need for greatly diversified teaching of computer concepts, theory and applications in order to produce a society which could cope with new computer-based