Informatics is now a foundational subject in Swiss high schools

On 28 June 2023, the Federal Council adopted the total revision of the legal bases governing the Matura. Among the new features of this reform is the promotion of informatics, economics and law from compulsory to foundational subjects.

This decision is part of the strategy to strengthen the MINT (Mathematics, Informatics, Natural sciences, and Technology) learning environment. Informatics, introduced in 1995 as a complementary option, was made a mandatory discipline in 2018. The move to foundational discipline means that the informatics mark will contribute to the matura mark, and represents an acknowledgementof the subject's contribution within high school education. Any changes in the number of lessons will be determined at cantonal level.

The Faculty of Informatics at Università della Svizzera italiana is active in the education of and for informatics teachers. The specialised master's programme for teaching informatics, coordinated by Professors Antonio Carzaniga and Matthias Hauswirth, will end in September; some USI alumni are also already active in high schools.

“My group will continue to support high school informatics teachers in the long term,” explained Professor Matthias Hauswirth. “We will focus in particular on teaching programming, one of the most challenging topics in the high school informatics curriculum. We will continue to make our work available in the form of resources and platforms such as PyTamaro, ExpressionTutor and ProgMiscon, and we will continue to organise events such as this August's PyTamaro Summer Academy, to promote an ongoing exchange between teachers and our computing education research group at USI."

"I am also very happy to continue to collaborate with the informatics teachers at the Ticino high schools. For example, an exciting educational activity that I am particularly passionate about is the preparation of students for the International Olympiad in Informatics", added Professor Antonio Carzaniga.