Fluency in Information Technology - FITNZ: an ICT Curriculum Meta-Framework for New Zealand high schools

Abstract

This paper proposes an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Curriculum Meta-Framework to operate at the senior secondary school level in New Zealand. This meta-framework arises from the Fluency in Information Technology (“FITNZ”) Project, a collaborative venture between tertiary and secondary sector educators, government and industry. The initiative is intended to address the poor alignment between tertiary education and the Information Technology needs of the industry sector. The confused perceptions of ICT and the fragmented and uneven state of computing education at the secondary level have contributed to the disparity between tertiary education and industry needs. The paper draws on previous work on IT fluency. It also positions the computing disciplines within the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) computing curricula 2005 document in order to propose a soundly based set of graduate outcomes.