The Informatics Revolution Enters Schools

by Enrico Nardelli

(versione italiana qua)

The text of the New National Guidelines for early childhood education and the first cycle of education (i.e., primary and lower secondary school) has just been published. This is a revision of the document originally released in 2012 by the Ministry of Education, University, and Research (via Ministerial Decree 254 of Nov 16, 2012), which serves as the reference framework for defining the specific curriculum that constitutes the educational offering of each school.

I will leave the broader commentary on the structure and overall approach of this revision to others; a public consultation phase with professional and subject-matter associations, parent and student groups, and school trade unions is now opening.

In this article, I focus solely on the teaching of informatics, which is finally being introduced as a subject from the early years of school. This is a goal I have been working toward for over ten years, with the support of distinguished colleagues both in Italy—within the CINI National Laboratory "Informatics and School" (of which I am the Director)—and in Europe, through the international coalition Informatics for All (which I helped found while serving as president of Informatics Europe).

Back in 2017, our Laboratory had already developed a pedagogical proposal that has been fairly faithfully reflected in these new guidelines. At the European level, in 2022 we defined a reference framework for the teaching of informatics in schools that played a very significant role in the process leading to the Recommendation of the Council of the European Union on the teaching of informatics in schools.

Informatics appears in these new guidelines "wearing two hats," since introducing it as an independent scientific subject, as is the case in many other countries worldwide, would have required a different and more difficult regulatory path. Informatics competencies have been introduced within both Mathematics and Technology, in a way that is culturally compatible with each of these two disciplines.

It is therefore fair to say that this is a historic moment, given that for decades in Italy, and in Europe more broadly, discussion has focused solely on operational digital skills (remember the ECDL, the infamous European Computer Driving License?), reflecting a broader failure, especially among those with the cultural background to know better, to grasp how society is being transformed by digital technologies and to chart an appropriate course for the country.

At best, this mindset led us to buy and use technology and digital services developed and managed elsewhere, preventing our country from developing increasingly strategic skills in a society that is becoming more digital by the day, a society where the difference is made not so much by the tools used, but by the quality of people's education.

In many cases, unfortunately, by confusing the ends with the means, digital devices were flooded into schools—a trend that exploded during the pandemic—under the assumption that this was the right path, while ignoring those who urged caution. Justice was only done in 2024 by the UNESCO report on what was called “the tragedy of digital education.”

True knowledge of informatics concepts, theories, and methods is an absolute necessity if we are to have the chance to choose our own path of development, without depending on systems and knowledge we do not possess and without being subject to the surveillance of those who manage them. I discussed this in detail in my book, La rivoluzione informatica: conoscenza, consapevolezza e potere nella società digitale (The Informatics Revolution: Knowledge, Awareness, and Power in the Digital Society), presenting both the fundamental concepts of the discipline and the social consequences of its technological tools. Talking about digital transformation, as has been done obsessively for some years now, while imagining it can be achieved by purchasing technology or user training courses, without investing in school and university education, is wishful thinking.

With these new guidelines, we finally have the chance to embark on a virtuous path, ensuring that all citizens understand the scientific concepts that run the digital world around us. By acquiring a basic knowledge of this subject, the chances increase that more boys, and especially more girls, will choose it for their technical or university studies. Without students entering these fields at universities, we will never find the researchers needed to develop cutting-edge informatics systems, such as the ones based on AI technologies everyone is talking about today.

The first, fundamental step has been taken, but the road ahead is long, and it will be essential to draw on the experience of countries that embarked on this journey before us. The United Kingdom in particular made computing education compulsory as far back as 2014. Following that reform, it became clear by 2017 that the curriculum guidelines were going largely unimplemented due to a shortage of adequately trained teachers. In response, the British government allocated £82 million in November 2018 to fund a four-year national centre for teacher training in computer science education. The result was the establishment, in 2019, of the National Centre for Computing Education, which has developed teaching materials and training courses for teachers at all school levels, and which has continued to receive renewed funding ever since, most recently in 2025, despite cuts to public spending.

In Italy, we had the opportunity of PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) funds, but due to numerous organizational and time constraints, they are being spent in a way that will not, in essence, leave us with a teaching force capable of properly implementing these national guidelines.

This will not be a simple undertaking, and it will require strong political will — which I hope will be bipartisan, in the country's strategic interest. Unlike every other subject taught in schools, apart from the small number of teachers who teach informatics in a handful of upper secondary school tracks, none of the current teaching staff has ever studied the subject — either at school or at university. There is therefore no widely shared cultural foundation to build on for professional training, as exists, for example, for mathematics, which is taught in primary school by teachers who, although they may not have formal professional training in the subject, have studied it throughout their 13 years of schooling.

I am confident this will be achieved. The academic informatics community, which has been informally bringing the foundations of computer science to nearly all Italian schools for 11 years through the Program the Future project, is ready to collaborate.

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The original version (in italian) has been published by "StartMAG" on 13 March 2025.