Attracting pupils to IT is a tough task

Next week’s release of this year’s A-level exam results could make gloomy reading for IT employers.

Every year since 2001 the number of schoolchildren studying computer studies in the UK has dropped – similar falls have affected science subjects such as physics and chemistry – with knock-on effects on the number of students continuing into university degrees.

There seems little optimism that this trend will be significantly reversed this year.

Of course, with the increasing need for business skills in IT, employers can easily turn to students from other subjects, and many prefer to in any case. But the concern for IT is whether, having spurned computing academically, there would be any motivation among graduates to enter the industry professionally.

The real challenge is to engage children with IT as a career. And the e-assessment project run by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority offers some hope.

The initiative, to test pupils’ IT skills through online exams, assessed 40,000 13- and 14-year-old children – well above the original target of 12,000. Its aim was not to test technical skills, but to appraise students’ ability to use IT to improve the way they work.

There are not many children with qualms about using technology to improve the way they play or communicate with each other, but IT in the workplace has been a different matter.

Combined with other initiatives such as e-Skills UK’s Computer Clubs for Girls, this is an important step in trying to convince tomorrow’s workforce that IT is no longer simply a home for all the world’s bearded geeks and techies.

IT directors have a vital part to play as role models for this next generation of employees, and many would benefit from closer involvement in schools IT and pupils’ career planning.

If technology can be successfully portrayed as an exciting and motivating place to work at an early age, the long-term benefit to UK IT will be signifi cant.