ICT lessons should be dropped from the UK schools curriculum entirely, as the subject is failing both pupils and employers, according to IT trade body Intellect.
Instead, the government should replace ICT with lessons that focus on higher-value computer science skills that embed the use of ICT across every other subject, the trade body advised.
John Hoggard, Intellect's education programme manager, said the current ICT curriculum is failing students and putting them off ICT as a discipline, as it is too focused on teaching pupils how to use a limited number of software packages and does not inspire them to develop more advanced computer science skills.
"Uptake of ICT courses is falling – for example, GCSE courses in ICT show a 57 per cent decline in numbers between 2005 and 2010. And the basic ICT skills being generated by the education system are not meeting the needs of pupils or their potential employers," he said.
Tim Hatch, member of Intellect's Education Group and education and public sector business development manager at Intel, added: "Intel sees other countries, especially emerging markets, evaluating the skills they need and developing curriculums to match to ensure future growth.
"It is vital that we develop our advanced computing, science, technology, engineering and mathematics and basic ICT skills in the UK to ensure we can compete with these emerging economies and this work needs to begin in our schools."
"Knowing how to use Word, Excel, Powerpoint are useful skills but they take the fun out of computers. Computer science is about making things, creating things. It's about, 'wow, I ust made this.'"
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/34568/Interview_David_Brabens_Big_Bold_Wonderful_Plan.php
Posted by: Greg 10 May 2011
This would be madness but it does raise some questions.
English and Mathematics are central to becoming a capable self-sufficient and contributing member of society. Similarly, technology and the tools we can use to make us more proficient in a digital world are part of mainstream living today. Today we live a different world and personal acquisition of ICT skills and understanding cannot be assumed. There are still too few businesses able to make good, if any use of ICT. Too many individuals are excluded from the benefits of the digital resources of the modern world, which continues to change and grow. Too many are unaware of the security issues to be faced.
The major difficulty though, is for the education system, the curriculum for ICT and teachers to keep up to date - to make it relevant and interesting. Good, knowledgeable and inquisitive teachers are needed. We shouldn't give up on this curriculum because of difficulties; we need to help it and those involved with it to improve.
Posted by: Arthur Butterfield 21 Apr 2011
As a qualified s/w engineer with years of industry experience, I was considering going into teaching and spent over 1 month in teaching observation at 4 different schools. After those experiences, I decided ICT wasn't for me (well not until it changes). My kids in junior school are already learning MS Word and PowerPoint, and Photoshop Elements. By the time they move onto secondary school I hope there's going to be more technically challenging content for them.
For those that work in finance, engineering and the computer games industry: Maths & Physics are considered essential with Computer Science next in the line but unfortunately most secondary school children's exposure to that is via ICT which doesn't do it justice.
While there are good elements of ICT, it should really be taught at a much younger age across all schools with Computer Science (design, programming, tools) being the end qualification.
Posted by: Gregory 21 Apr 2011
I have no idea where you found your information Sam,
I speak as a computer science graduate with a masters who has several years industry experience... and now teaches. I have also mentored several computer science PGCE students in the past two years.
It would be very easy to get what you consider 'real' work but I actually find my work as a teacher far more enjoyable and rewarding.
Try to remember that most teaching roles are filled with people whose qualifications and experience mean they could easily earn far more elsewhere, but choose to stay.
Also if you are going to paraphrase Aristotle at least do it properly, it should read 'Those who can do, those who understand teach'.
I've had a great deal of success teaching programming in school, some students will struggle but by the end of their second year most of my lot will be competent in the use of VB.NET, Java, XNA with a little C# and the use of PHP & MySQL.
The skill of any teacher is to take a complex subject and present it in a way that will enable the students to assimilate the knowledge easily.
Posted by: Dave 21 Apr 2011
I went to high school between 2000 and 2005 and I studied ICT for those 5 years. What I was taught stuck with me and it helped me, even at university level (I took computing). I think something like programming would have to be simplified too much for high school tuition and Alice would appear all over the country, which is not a good idea, at all!
If I hadn't been taught to use Word, Access and Excel, I would have been at a loss on my college course and also on my university course. As I mentioned previously, I think that subjects such as programming can't be taught at a simple level because they're not simple subjects. They require a lot of reading and considering a lot of ICT teachers in high school have a general business degree (at least they did in my school) how are they supposed to teach something they may not have a great knowledge of?
In a perfect world, having something more practical would be fantastic but realistically, I don't think it's possible.
Posted by: James 20 Apr 2011
Youngsters today have poor ICT skills - they are only interested in phones/facebook/social networking/games. They are "consumers of ICT" for entertainment only. They do not naturally gravitate or show any interest in learning spreadsheets or databases, and if they are not taught that in school, they will not have those very basic of skills. The ICT industry is so out of touch with todays youngsters, if they really believe that they will get better skilled employees if they leave ICT to be taught cross-curricular (tried that in the 1990's and it failed miserably) --- get rid of ICT in the curriculum and watch the standards (whatever your opinon of them is now) nosedive! Maybe the ICT industry should get into schools and support them in the delivery of an ICT course rather than knock what schools are doing
Posted by: louise cowlishaw 20 Apr 2011
On the one hand, I'd have to agree that learning to use Microsoft Word is both unnecessary - every teenager knows how to do this, and demoralizingly boring.
On the other, it was reported that only one teacher from a true computing background was trained last year. Where exactly are these 'real computing' teachers going to come from?
These are necessary skills - when I compare how a programming team works and the software they use to the workflow of a small business, there is huge potential. But who is going to do the teaching?
(Those that can't teach is too true, by the way. For so long as comp sci grads can get real work, only the worst of them will want to teach it)
Posted by: Sam 20 Apr 2011
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