Neglect of computer science in British education is shocking

Computer Business Review

Number of students who took IT GCSE this year hits record low

At a time when the number of students who took IT GCSE has seen the biggest fall so far, Google chief Eric Schmidt has criticised the British education system, saying the country is "throwing away" its "great computing heritage".

Meanwhile, according to a report by Computing, this year, the number of students who took IT GCSE fell 23%, the biggest fall so far.

The report said that the number of students opting for IT GCSE has plummeted by 57% over five years.

The Royal Society Computing in Schools study professor Steve Furber said, "Dwindling interest in computing at schools does not sit well with the evermore central role we are seeing computers play in business, government, home and entertainment."

Computing.co.uk

Various commentators have suggested the Royal Society would do well to look at the ICT curriculum and the way ICT is taught in schools.

The curriculum is dominated by use of databases, spreadsheets and word-processing packages. It is largely devoid of more recent IT developments, such as social media and mobile computing, and lacking in modern programming skills, which arguably would equip students for the modern world better than a lesson in data entry fields.

My commentary

The ICT GCSE course is reincarnation of the office skills course that fails to teach anything technical or interesting. The really smart students are those who study stuff about computers in their own time just like their counterparts did back in the 80s. Schools and colleges are hamstrung by the syllabus set by the exam boards even if they have state of the art facilities and highly knowledgeable teachers who are capable of delivering far more.

...does not mean a dwindling interest in computing outside of school.



That's the basic problem and it's a bit unjust to pin all the blame on the schools. It could be argued that cross curricular usage of computers is better in primary schools than it is in secondary schools because of technologies like Beebots and data loggers used in science and technology whereas the secondary curriculum is more biased towards desk top publishing and office applications.

I second the comment that the smart kids are self educated about computers. The statement about the increase in students numbers taking traditional sciences is quite interesting. Maybe the clever kids prefer to channel their efforts onto real technical subjects and leave the ICT GCSE for the dunces destined for office dogsbodies!

I've posted a comment to an article about the A Level at Computing.co.uk mentioning how the course is dated, uninteresting, and it's difficult to find colleges that offer it. I also stated that it's a bad idea to dumb down computing courses in order to appeal to the less technically minded masses by making an analogy with the GCSE science curriculum.

Always has been, always will be. Kids nowadays have access to far more computer resources outside of school than kids of the 80s ever had. The really smart employers know this. They look at what knowledge and experience kids have acquired outside of school whilst those employers living on another planet whinge about GCSE ICT lessons as they expect school to provide for all.