SIGCSE '78 Proceedings of the ninth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Principles of Program Design
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Zambia, like many developing countries in Africa, has a small but significant data processing sector; see (Wallace 1977) for a survey. The need for data processing is particularly acute in the copper mining industry which generates practically all of the foreign exchange that enters the country. The copper mines are so important to the national economy that at first the independent government did not risk interfering with them, although it eventually acquired a controlling interest. With increased general education and particularly since the downturn in copper prices, Zambia, like other countries, has sought to minimize its dependence on foreign experts. Nowhere is such expertise more prevalent or more crucial than in the area of data processing. It is therefore government policy to train Zambians to fill as many as possible, and ultimately all, of the positions from data preparation clerk to D.P. Manager. A first step was taken in 1970 when a few carefully selected secondary school graduates began studying for university entrance in the United Kingdom. There was a need for a training program which would have as intake secondary level trainees with good, not to say outstanding, academic records, and would produce competent, reliable programmers in the shortest possible time. The remainder of this paper describes the development and implementation of this training program and attempts to identify the lessons learned and the degree of success achieved.