Computer science high school curriculum in Israel and Lithuania - comparison and teachers’ views

ENComputer Science (CS) education in high schools is entering the fifth decade of its existence. Israel is one of the first countries which started to offer CS courses in high schools in the middle of the 1970s. Many European countries joined this process a decade later – Lithuania is among them. Both countries put a lot of effort in developing CS curricula and establishing assessment examinations. Nowadays there has been considerable activities surrounding CS education on all levels therefore we suggest to take a look at the experience of these two countries. In this paper we describe the CS curriculum for high schools in both countries, including a description of the final exams, some statistics regarding students' participation and achievements as well as exam evaluation. We then display the results of a survey, conducted among high-school teachers in both countries regarding teachers' attitudes towards the CS curriculum. We sum up with a discussion comparing curricula and teachers' attitudes in both countries and conclude with some insights from the survey. Keywords Computer Science Education, K-12, Computer Science Curricula. [From the publication]