In the last decade, there has been an increasing global interest at a policy level in the benefits of providing computing as a school subject. Many of the arguments centre around global equity in an increasingly technological society.
Our Computing Around The World study aims to provide a rough snapshot of the evolving state of global K-12 computing education in 2024.
This work develops research begun by the Brookings Institution ‘Building Skills for Life’ report and data [personal communication], which identified that in 2019, in 146 of the world’s 217 countries, there was no available online evidence of computer science education provision, either at primary, middle and/or secondary level, on a mandatory, optional or cross-curricular basis; neither was there any government announced planned expansion or pilot activity.
With a renewed focus on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4, Quality education, arising from its 2030 deadline, many jurisdictions are reviewing their curricula, paying increased attention to localisation, gender equity and ‘21st Century skills,’ including computing and digital literacy. Common rationales given for this renewed focus on computing education include: the importance of students developing 21st-century skills in a digitalised world; the need to promote equality, diversity and inclusion in terms of access to computing education and the wider field of computing; the educational and personal benefits of developing foundational computing KSU and associated learning competencies; the contributions that a CS-skilled workforce makes to economic growth for nations and individuals; the need for the CS curriculum to reflect advances in technology and to drive further innovation.
Whereas the devolved nations in the UK can celebrate decades of having a computing-related subject in the curriculum (eg see Passey, 2014), and 73 other countries have announced a change in their provision more recently, many children around the world are not receiving any computing education at all.
Given that the subject area of computing is continually evolving, we wanted to investigate if there had been any changes in intended computing education provision since 2019, with a focus on where and why computing is being introduced into the curriculum globally. The intended curriculum is the curriculum teachers are expected to deliver as outlined in official or nationally mandated policy documents, curriculum standards, frameworks, or guidelines. We use the term ‘computing’ to refer to curricula which incorporate programming and algorithms in their schemes of work and related material.
Our research began with an online survey of documents relating to countries’ intended computing curricula, conducted between March and June 2024, for all countries for which there was no evidence of CSEd provision in the original Brookings 2019 data.
Preliminary study findings
Figure 1: Map of CSEd provision 2024. Hover over the map to view the country name; zoom in using the button in the bottom right corner.
Based on our research, Figure 1 indicates the dominant mode of Computer Science education provision of countries in 2024 (the original 2019 data is additionally patterned). No evidence of computing education nor any planned expansion or pilot activity, could be found online for the countries coloured grey.
As a work in progress the project is only in the preliminary stages of analysis; here we present some introductory descriptive statistics for the four continents Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe. These approximate figures relate to statements of intent to expand computing education located in the literature search.
Globally
In 2019, for 146 of the 220 (66%) countries surveyed, there was no available online evidence of Computer Science education (CSEd) provision.
Half (73) of those 146 countries have since announced some change in intended CSEd provision. Of these 73 countries, the majority have announced a plan or pilot for expansion (29%), offer CS courses in some schools (17%) or have made the subject mandatory or optional starting in secondary school (10%). Overall, provision has almost doubled between 2019 and 2024 - an encouraging development.
By continent
In terms of intentional activity, computing in the curriculum has increased across all continents over the past 5 years. Between 2019 and 2024 the percentage of countries in the four continents of interest offering some form of computing education in K-12 has increased by:
| Continent | % countries offering CS 2019 | % countries offering CS 2024 | % increase |
| Africa | 9.40 | 49.05 | 39.65 |
| Asia | 24.50 | 57.89 | 33.39 |
| Europe | 63.49 | 88.88 | 25.39 |
| LAC | 29.54 | 70.45 | 40.91 |
Africa and Latin America have made the most progress in increased provision of CS with a roughly 2/5ths (40%) reduction in the number of countries not offering CS between 2019 and 2024. Asia has reduced the number of countries not offering CS by one third (33.3%); Europe, by ¼ (25.4%).
The percentage of African and Asian countries with computing in their intended curriculum is still lower than Europe and Latin American countries, however, the gap has narrowed over the last five years.
Income level
We examined whether country income level (determined by the World Bank categories) was associated with increased provision of computing education in the four continents surveyed. Whereas income level clearly has some impact on countries’ ability to provide the necessary technological infrastructure, it does not account for the changes in CSEd provision alone.
| Continent | Evidence of new CS in 2024 - total no. per continent/146 | Low % with evidence of new CS in 2024 | Lower middle % with evidence of new CS in 2024 | Upper middle % with evidence of new CS in 2024 | High % with evidence of new CS in 2024 |
| Africa | 21 | 42.8 | 42.8 | 14.3 | 0 |
| LAC | 18 | 0 | 16.6 | 33.3 | 50 |
| Asia | 19 | 5.3 | 47.4 | 21 | 26.3 |
| Europe | 16 | 0 | 12.5 | 25 | 62.5 |
Table 2. % of countries per continent by income level with evidence of new CS provision in 2024.
Africa
41.5% (22/53) of African countries are categorised as low income level, compared with 0% in LAC, 0% in Europe and 7% in Asia. Only 9/53 African countries are upper middle (8) or high income level (1).
Seychelles, the single African country assigned a high income level, has no evidence of computing education provision in 2024. 14.3% of the 21 African countries with some evidence of intended increased CS provision are in the upper middle income group. 42.8% are in the lower middle income group, and the same percentage are in the low income group.
These figures show that in those African countries which have introduced some form of increased provision of computing education to date, income level does not seem to be a strong factor. Progress in Africa is also due in part to the fact that multiple interventions by NGOs (such as the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Tech Kidz Africa, Google, Microsoft) and global education governance organisations (eg UNESCO) are yielding positive impacts in those areas; successful localised programs such as CSEd Botswana and an increase in Africa-focused computing education research (e.g. Sanusi and Deriba, 2024; Tshukudu et al., 2023) also promotes the development of CSEd in African countries.
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)
Overall 39/44 LAC countries are categorised as upper middle or high income level.
Of the 18 LAC countries which have some evidence of computing education provision by 2024, none are of low income status. 16.6% are of lower middle, a third are upper middle and half are of high income status. This indicates that in LAC, changes to provision in computing education may be related to income level, with 83% of those countries who have introduced some form of computing education by 2024 having a high or upper middle income status. What might account for the fact that lower income countries in LAC countries are making less progress in introducing CS into their curriculum? According to a UNESCO Global Education Monitoring report factors impeding progress in these countries include limited access to technological equipment, connectivity, and digital educational resources as well as the reach and continuity of teachers’ training; the participation of students from low-income backgrounds is further affected by a lack of role models in their communities. These countries are more likely to rely on national programmes, enrichment activities and informal events, which may lack regularity or focus on learning outcomes, rather than systematised programmes or compulsory curriculum integration (UNESCO, 2023).
Asia
Overall 32/57 (56%) of Asian countries are upper middle or high income level. Of the 19 countries in Asia with evidence of increased computing education provision by 2024, 5.3% are low income. 47.4% are lower middle; 21% are upper middle; 26.3% are high income. 52.7% of countries with some evidence of CS are in low or lower middle income countries, compared to 47.3% in either upper middle or high income countries. This suggests that income level is not strongly related to new computing provision in Asia. What influences might be at play here to explain why 42% of countries in Asia still have no evidence of CSEd in 2024?
Countries such as Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China have launched national curricular reforms in CS education, partially driven by the strength of the ICT industry in these countries (Brookings, 2021; So et al, 2020). These countries also score well in PISA evaluations and students, teachers, and parents have overall positive perceptions of CS education. Nevertheless, challenges such as a lack of teacher training and unified curriculum remain. Another problem is the narrow conception of CS as coding skills, and the lack of curriculum hours allocated to the subject (So et al, 2020). For other countries in the region (eg Macau, Vietnam), less research activity is directed at K-12 CSEd.
In addition to these factors, the very real challenges posed in Asia and the Middle East by high levels of conflict and poverty, remote settlements, poor infrastructure, low public spending on education and poor basic learning outcomes in schools means that matters of curriculum may be low on governments’ policy priorities; in some jurisdictions ‘policy makers do not (or choose not to) recognize the magnitude of their countries’ learning deficits’, including teacher subject and pedagogy knowledge (Rythia et al., 2023).
Europe
Overall 59/63 European countries are categorised as upper middle or high income level. Of the 16 countries in Europe which showed evidence of increased CS provision by 2024, 0% are low income; 12.5 % are lower middle income; 25% are upper middle income; 62.5% are high income. This suggests that new CS provision may be related to income level in these European countries; however, several high profile examples of successful CSEd implementation (eg in England and Germany), concerted efforts from European Union education monitoring programs such as Eurydice and its publications (e.g. European Commission, 2022) and other organisations such as Informatics Europe and Computing At School may have had an additional impact on the increase in and updating of CSEd provision in Europe.
We acknowledge that it is challenging to accurately monitor CSEd provision globally and we'd love you to work with us to keep it up to date. Please do make contact if you have links to data available in the public domain which can add to the accuracy of the picture we present here.
We’ve shared a copy of our data in this spreadsheet.
Read the original Brookings report
Vegas, E., Hansen, M., & Fowler, B. (2021). Building skills for life: How to expand and improve computer science education around the world. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Building_skills_for_life.pdf