A proposal for an IOI syllabus

The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is the premier competition in computing science for secondary education. The competition problems are algorithmic in nature, but the IOI Regulations do not clearly de¿ne the scope of the competition. The international olympiads in physics, chemistry, and biology do have an offcial syllabus, whereas the International Mathematical Olympiad has made the deliberate decision not to have an offcial syllabus. We argue that the bene¿ts of having an offcial IOI Syllabus outweigh the disadvantages. Guided by a set of general principles we present a proposal for an IOI Syllabus, divided into four main areas: mathematics, computing science, software engineering, and computer literacy.