A letter from WASP-EduTF to Skolverket

On May 19 2006 a letter was sent on behalf of The Web Standards Project’s Education Task Force to a number of people at Skolverket, the Swedish National Agency for Education. A press release (Gymnasieskolans undervisning i webbteknik ska lära för framtiden - inte gårdagen) was also sent to approximately twenty Internet and education-related Swedish magazines.

This letter is an attempt to influence Skolverket to update the development methods being taught in Web related subjects in the Swedish Gymnasieskola (equivalent to the U.S. Senior High and the British A-level).

A few quotes from the letter’s abstract:

The education in the subjects “Interactive Media”, “Internet Programming” and “Information technology” must give the students the ability to develop for the web of today and tomorrow. There is a risk that the education will continue to teach, as it is do a large extent doing today, outdated and technically inferior methods.

But it is of utmost importance that the education provides a foundation, from which the students do not need to un-train and re-educate themselves, because they have been taught the wrong methods. The school should be an onramp to highway of the future, not a dead-end street into the past.

We do not say that standards and accessibility is the only thing one needs to know, when building a modern site, but we do say that there are no other valid options for building websites, when we talk about these aspects.

The letter was written by Lars Gunther and describes the opinion of The Web Standards Project’s Education Task Force. It has been reviewed and co-signed by a group of Swedish web professionals who want to make the web better and more accessible: myself, Tommy Olsson, Robert Nyman, Peter Krantz, Martin Janner, and Björn Hagström.

A full description and downloads in various formats are available in Swedish and English at Webbutveckling 2006.

Posted on May 22, 2006 in Web Standards