'No one knows precisely what skills children will need in the future,' says Michael Gove

After new curriculum guidelines, is education secretary still hedging his bets?

"No one knows precisely what skills children will need in the future," Michael Gove told Computing in an interview about the Department for Education's new curriculum guidelines.

"But almost every career in every industry sector is being transformed by technology," followed Gove, stating that a range of work, "from farming to fashion, manufacturing to music" will depend on IT in the future.

"So all young people in the 21st century will need to be equally comfortable with reading, writing and programming; understanding not just how to work a computer, but how a computer works," said Gove.

Computing asked Gove what the DfE had learned from its contact with advisory groups such as the British Computer Society and Royal Academy of Engineering.

The education secretary replied that pupils will be taught an equal balance of "the academic discipline of computer science" which includes "computational logic, algorithms and data representation, [giving] pupils... insight into how the digital technologies that they use every day actually work as well as "practical skills in writing and refining computer code". Together, he said, represents a "level of ambition" from the government that "is unashamedly high".

While the IT sector has welcomed Gove's technical approach, which places coding at the forefront, Computing has already heard from industry figures who worry that core computing skills that lie outside the specialist subject area are given less emphasis in the new curriculum.

Joanna Poplawska of The Corporate IT Forum's Education and Skills Commission recently told Computing that the curriculum guidelines are "too focused on the development side of computing".

"For the majority of employers, who are technology users not makers, information technology is a core area of study that should be given equal emphasis to computer science," said Poplawska.

"Knowing about Boolean logic is great - but it is also important to be able to manage tracked changes in a document, manipulate formulas in a spreadsheet, contribute to online discussions about a work assignment, and know the difference between vector and bitmap graphics," added Crispin Weston, chairman of the British Standards Institute's IST/34 committee for education, learning and training.

Gove backed up the DfE's curriculum choices by reminding Computing that "schools are free to start teaching all or some of the new computing curriculum now if they so choose".