Information Technology (IT)

Information Technology (IT)

HOD: Ms Pam Raper

Compulsory: No

Does it count for APS: Yes, full points awarded

Required for further studying: No

Useful for: IT field of learning, software engineering, computer programming, etc.

Practical component: Yes. IT includes a Practical Assessment Task (PAT) which requires additional time outside of classroom time.

Special requirements/recommendations: The minimum entrance requirement for this subject is a Mathematics average of 60%. Learners are expected to spend a minimum of an hour a day practising their programming skills. To this end, it is compulsory for any learner wishing to take IT as a subject to have daily access to a computer. Access to a printer is also necessary as items need occasionally to be printed for submission.

More details:

Information Technology at school level has two components: theory and practical (programming). These two components are expected of any student who wishes to study engineering, surveying and ICT systems. Many of these tertiary-level courses have ICT as a compulsory module in the first and second years.

The practical component teaches the student programming principles by means of the event-driven Delphi. The principles include variables, mathematical operators, string handling, loops, conditional statements and arrays. With the focus on programming principles and problem-solving, the leap from a single language at the secondary school level to a variety of languages at the tertiary level is achieved with relative ease.

Within the theory component fundamentals of hardware and software, networking, database design and normalisation are covered, amongst other topics, over the three-year course. The content is covered in the textbook, however, learners are expected to do additional reading regarding current trends in ICT, from magazines, internet articles etc.

NOTE: In 2023, IT will be timetabled with CAT. These two subjects may not be taken together.