The Life and Growth of Year 12 Computing in Victoria: An Ecological Model - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 129

2. In the Second Stage a tradition of scholarly work begins to emerge and more
teachers are recruited as trained specialists. Students are now increasingly at-
tracted by the new subject's reputation and growing academic status. Subject
matter in the new subject is becoming increasingly well organised.
3. In the Third and final stage the teachers have constituted a professional body
with established rules and values. Subject matter is largely determined by spe-
cialist scholars in the field and students are thus initiated into a tradition.
An interesting variation is the reaction to the subject by tertiary institutions in Victo-
ria. Several of the 'traditional' universities, which had been offering a highly abstract
version of Computer Science for some time opposed introduction of the new subject
at secondary school level, claiming that the concepts required of this discipline were
beyond what could be understood by 17 year old students. On the other hand many of
the newer tertiary institutions, then known as Colleges of Advanced Education (later
to become universities), were generally quite supportive after fighting their own
battles with the universities on the place of computing some years earlier. This part-
nership can be seen as a co-operation between the organism represented by the new
subject and the organism represented by these new tertiary institutions.
Parents, students and employers readily accepted HSC Computer Science, and stu-
dent numbers taking the new subject increased rapidly. Teachers, however, were not
universally in favour. Beginning from about the mid-1980s when Computer Science
was still in rapid growth a number of teachers began to question its place [1]. Their
argument had several strands. Firstly, some claimed that HSC Computer Science was
an elitist academic subject, too difficult for some students, and so should not be sup-
ported (- it is interesting to note that this was exactly opposite to the view earlier ex-
pressed by Melbourne and Monash universities). Others noted that the ratio of girls to
boys taking Computer Science was almost as low as that for physics, and expressed
concern that it was becoming a boy's subject . Perhaps, however, the most damaging
criticism came from those teachers who claimed that the presence of a specialist sub-
ject detracted from the move to encourage the use of ' Computers across the Curricu-
lum '. Their argument had two parts: firstly, they argued that the demands made on
school computing facilities by Computer Science classes made it difficult for others to
obtain adequate access to the machines. While containing some truth, this argument
misses the point that in most cases the reason that the school had purchased a number
of computers at all was to support the teaching of Computer Science. Secondly, it was
argued that the existence of a specialist subject would mean that teachers of other
subject areas would not bother to include any mention of computing, considering it
covered elsewhere. A number of teachers saw Computer Science and Computers
across the Curriculum as adversaries and it took some time before these competing
points of view were reconciled [1].
4.1.2 The Second Turning Point: Three New Subjects
Changes to the structure of the Year 12 curriculum in the early 1990s resulted in the
introduction of three new Information Technology subjects: Information Systems ,
Information Processing and Management and Information Technology in Society to
replace Computer Science . This process also resulted in a decrease in any links be-
tween secondary curriculum and the universities. At this time several other subjects