

UK Schools ICT to be replaced by computer science programme - soitgoes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16493929

======
citricsquid
I'm from England, I left school in 2008 with 3 GCSEs (which is considered
_failing_ high school here) and the absolute biggest problem with education
here in England is it's not _education_ it's just _doing work_ / remembering
information -- not sure if this affects other countries, I would assume so but
I've not experienced any other education system.

I had an absolutely fantastic IT teacher, he really cared about technology and
teaching and he was the best teacher I've ever had but he was _very_
restricted by the curriculum. This was a teacher who enjoyed programming and
could teach it, he could teach complex (relative to the classes intelligence
level) computing things and teach it in a way we could understand, but the
material he was forced to teach was awful, absolutely awful. For my entire
last year of school my required work was (If I remember correctly (this is how
awful it was, I do not remember it well today)) write an explanation / brief
about a microsoft access database system, the extent of our freedom was to
choose the subject (dvd store, grocery store etc) and this was an entire years
worth of work.

What we need is two things, teachers who really care about teaching and
providing a real education _and_ a good curriculum that promotes _learning_
not consumption (and subsequent regurgitation) of information. I left high
school and in the last 4 years of it I really did not learn anything that is
useful to me today, everything I need to know today is stuff I was taught
early on, the last 4 years was being given information to consume, information
that as soon as I left the classroom was absolutely worthless.

The IT teacher I had left the school after a year to teach in Switzerland, I
think that's pretty telling. The system we have pushes good teachers away and
the shitty ones who are just content reciting material stick around, I would
also assume relevant to this point is a teacher I had of Spanish is still with
the school, but he is such a bad teacher they re-assigned him after many years
to "cooking". Someone the school deemed qualified and able enough to teach
Spanish for many years is now using his full power to teach cooking?

~~~
corin_
My IT teacher was similarly skilled and equally wanted to teach usefully and
interestingly, and he generally managed to get round the curriculum.

Part of this was that he managed to bend the curriculum to be more challenging
and interesting (my GCSE project consisted of researching and then writing up
methods of bypassing the school's internet filter system - those who preferred
to could indeed do stuff like MS Access projects), and part was finding ways
to achieve good grades quickly leaving plenty of free time for other areas.

Possibly the reason he was able to do this was that I went to a private
school, I don't know if state schools would allow teachers this much
flexibility? That said, my school was/is ranked very highly in GCSE/A-Level
rankings tables, and took that very seriously, so as far as grades were
concerned he was still on a very tight leash.

He was a very unusual (in a good way) teacher though, like none over I ever
had or have ever heard of. In his office (connected to the IT rooms) he had a
fully stocked minifridge, originally for himself but he also sold to his
students at cost. He formerlly was a programmer for the Canadian air force, as
well as a DJ, and would generally play techno music through classes (often
loud enough for teachers above to take issue), and was regularly getting in
trouble with the headmaster for wearing an ear-ring. Unconventional, but the
best teacher any of us ever had.

~~~
cstross
Let me compare with the 1980s in England, because that's what I know ...

I sat 'O' levels (now replaced by GCSEs in 1981 and 'A' levels in 1983. There
was _no_ IT teaching in my school at that time. A computer lab was installed
in 1980, and they began running the 'O' level computer science exams in 1983
(too late for me) although I got to use the lab's Apple IIs and Systime 525
minicomputer during my 'A' level in general studies. Teaching focused on
programming; there were _no_ office apps on those computers. The 'O' level in
CS was recognizably about computer _science_ , albeit at an embryonic level,
in those days.

In 1987 I began studying for an 'A' level in computer science at evening
classes (I'd been at university from 1983-86). The focus was fairly hardcore
programming, with some assembly language plus BBC Basic, plus boolean logic,
binary and hexadecimal arithmetic, basic data structures (linked lists, trees,
hash tables). Applications barely got a look in.

I bailed on the CS 'A' level as too pedestrian and instead went into a
graduate-entry conversion degree in 1989. The then CS 'A' level was, I will
concede, useful preparation for a CS degree back then.

The point is, the 1980s syllabi had zero content on application usage -- it
was all about data processing and programming and the structure of computing
machinery. The trend towards teaching IT seems to have cut in some time after
1988, and gone _way_ too far ...

------
simonw
"Children are being forced to learn how to use applications, rather than to
make them. They are becoming slaves to the user interface and are totally
bored by it"

That's a remarkably smart thing for a politician to say about computing
education.

~~~
waitwhat
Sadly, this will all be reversed in a couple of years by the next minister who
will believe that "Children should be taught the essential workplace skills
that employers are demanding in the 21st century. Driving schools don't teach
their students how to build a car, but how to use one; and schools shouldn't
teach their pupils how to build software, but how to use it."

[note: I don't believe this myself, just that the next minister will.]

~~~
omh
But could anyone seriously claim that children are leaving school and not able
to use computers?

I'd guess that the average teenager would be more capable with e-mail and
office applications than students of 5 or 10 years ago. Even if they aren't
using them regularly, they're at least familiar with most IT concepts.

~~~
Silhouette
> I'd guess that the average teenager would be more capable with e-mail ...
> than students of 5 or 10 years ago.

I suspect the average teenager today hardly uses e-mail at all. Newer, more
efficient methods of communication have developed, and e-mail in an
anachronism to most young people in the era of texting, Facebook messaging,
and tweets.

Whether swapping a powerful, flexible infrastructure for viewing the world in
140 characters or fewer is progress in a healthy direction is a different
question.

Then again, we haven't managed to get secure e-mail standardised, solve the
spam problem, or reliably prevent malware transmission over e-mail, despite
having several decades to work on these problems. I don't think we in the
older generations are in much of a position to lecture anyone on how to
communicate effectively.

I'm hoping that if this is a genuine effort to teach some computing real
skills to younger people, part of it will include some exposure to these sorts
of issues so perhaps they can do a better job of it than we have.

~~~
gmac
_I suspect the average teenager today hardly uses e-mail at all._

Yes -- I was surprised (and somewhat weirded out) recently to discover that my
younger sister, who's in her early twenties, thinks of email exclusively as a
formal communications channel, and never emails her friends (she texts or
Facebook-messages them instead).

~~~
omh
I'd never heard it in quite those terms before, but that echoes the way that
my generation might consider e-mail to be for talking to friends and physical
letters to be "formal".

------
jgrahamc
This is really great news. Lots of people in the UK have been pummeling on
Michael Gove to make this change and it's good to see that it's happening.
With Raspberry Pi and it being Alan Turing Year we can be hopeful about the
future of computer education in the UK.

------
fauldsh
This makes me slightly too happy. I lost less than 1% in Computing A-Level and
am on track for a 1st at university, yet I barely scraped a B at GCSE ICT and
have memories of writing ~sentence an hour. Hopefully this will increase
university standards as well, the ability to program in the slightest is not a
requirement at most UK universities because not every school even offers
Computing A-Level.

I consider ICT a remnant of times when every-one didn't have their own
computer, and teaching them just to use one was a genuine skill. And if I ever
hear of hierarchical marking ever again I will murder some-one (you can't
achieve the hard marks without first achieving the low ones).

~~~
comm_it
Assuming you're studying computer science at university, then programming is
also not a requirement because it's simply not necessary to know before you
start the degree.

~~~
waitwhat
It isn't _currently_ a requirement, but I assume that this is largely because
there isn't a significant supply of potential students who know the
fundamentals at the moment.

Increase the supply, and some courses/universities have the option of making
it a requirement.

~~~
ig1
Performance at A-Level mathematics is a better predictor of CS success than
performance at A-Level Computing (which does involve programming), hence it's
unlikely that universities will make it a requirement.

~~~
fauldsh
I see it as a failing of A-Level Computing more than anything. But I found
about half the of first year was wasted on me, to break this down:

Com 1001 - Software Engineering Crossover Project UML, requirements, analysis,
design etc. All covered in A-level computing.

Com1002 - Foundations of Computer Science Maths, not covered at A-level in any
subject.

COM1003 - Java Programming I struggle to remember which concepts were covered
in A-level and which I taught myself but sitting through lectures which taught
what a variable was, then what classes and an objects are was painful. There
were some golden parts that were enlightening but these were few and far
between.

COM1004 - Web and Internet Technology: Cryptography - not taught at A-level.
Ethics, law, piracy - taught at A-level.

COM1005 - Machines and Intelligence: The first semester of this was writing
about AI because we 'didn't know how to program'. The second semester was
learning systems which was very enjoyable and quite complicated.

COM1006 - Devices and Networks: Anything that was taught at A-Level (boolean
logic etc) was extended on and there was little time spent on basic stuff.

If they had made Computing A-level a requirement I'd have gained just shy of 6
months education I reckon (£4500 for future years), and if Computing A-level
was extended upon to improve it then they'd be able to teach even more
interesting topics. I think the requirement of Mathematics (which was required
at my university, but not all) just shows a general aptitude in the
appropriate areas, and only had direct relevance to two modules (one during
first year and one in second year).

Any course with too many applicants for its spaces (the top Universities)
could require Computing A-Level if it became more mainstream and I believe
this would increase the standard of education possible.

EDIT: To bring my point back round the article. This news makes me happy
because a move from ICT towards Computing at GCSE would likely increase
numbers taking Computing at A-level and definitely increase the quality of the
A-Level. The number of people taking it and the quality of teaching at this
level would hopefully remove some of the simpler concepts that Universities
are having to teach.

~~~
leoedin
The problem with making something like computing (or any non-standard) A level
a requirement is that it immediately limits people who couldn't study it. Not
all schools offer computing (or other less popular A levels), and by making it
a requirement you're penalising those who had to attend them. In practice,
that means rural and less-well-funded schools.

There obviously has to be some prerequisites. Perhaps the solution would be a
summer school for students without A Level computing. Most universities offer
a foundation year for people who want to study engineering or maths related
subjects but don't have the A levels required. However, given that you only
need to cover under 1 semester of work, you'd be pushed to convince people
that because they didn't study a computing A level they have to add an entire
year to their degree.

Probably the best option would just be to make it a strongly required subject,
and cover the basics in less time. If you don't have computing A level, you
need to work harder.

------
arethuza
The HN title should be modified to reflect that this applies to _England_ not
the UK as a whole.

[Apologies for, yet again, playing the role of the bad tempered Scot.]

~~~
amirhhz
This might interest you (if you haven't seen it already):
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/10/computer-
sci...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/10/computer-science-in-
schools-scotland) :)

~~~
arethuza
Have a look at a recent paper from the Scottish Computing Advanced Higher
exam:

[http://www.sqa.org.uk/pastpapers/papers/papers/2011/AH_Compu...](http://www.sqa.org.uk/pastpapers/papers/papers/2011/AH_Computing_all_2011.pdf)

Looks pretty good to me - it has everything from Prolog down to assembly in
it.

~~~
leoedin
It's great in theory, less in practice.

The school I went to in Scotland only offered computing up to a level known as
"Intermediate 2", which was somewhere between a GCSE and an AS level. We did
some Java programming, and it was quite an interesting class that provided
enough of a basis in basic programming concepts that I was able to continue
learning, but that was it.

Higher computing? You had to get a 30 minute bus to a local adult-education
type college. Advanced higer computer science? I wouldn't be surprised if
fewer than 100 people a year actually sit that exam. I did advanced higher
maths, and only 400 people sit the exam a year.

The Scottish curriculum is often quite good (AH maths taught me the first year
and a half of my engineering degree's maths modules), but it suffers from a
lack of students taking it. It's poorly recognised outside of Scotland (AH's
are generally harder than A levels, yet are seen on the same level by most
English universities), and the private schools that would give it some clout
almost all use the English curriculum.

~~~
arethuza
Sounds very much like the Sixth Year Studies courses I did in the early 80s -
very few people did them.

------
helen842000
I have worked as the designated IT Tech at schools across several counties in
the UK. In some junior schools the role of I.T co-ordinator is just given to
the newest/youngest most unsuspecting teacher. Usually they have no specific
ICT knowledge or interest in the subject. There is a vast difference in the
quality of ICT teaching at the younger age it doesn't provide a standard
foundation for this new curriculum to sit upon.

Students arriving at high school at 11 have such different experiences of ICT.
The curriculum they need going forward needs to have flexibility to teach
what's individually challenging & help those above average to excel & not get
bored.

The schools that I've seen integrate ICT successfully separate the 'use' of IT
day-to-day from the teaching about of the history, theory & application of the
subject. For example groups in the class using laptops to type up a project vs
sitting in the ICT suite to learn to write instructions to control
robots/traffic light sequences etc.

It's not fair to consitute word processing, e-mail, or desktop publishing as
learning ICT anymore. It's like providing a lesson on using the telephone,
it's not needed now they're a universal method of communication.

Now sitting at a computer to do general work doesn't constitute ICT learning.

Integrating ICT into the classroom works well. You have no idea how long it
takes to take 30+ excited pupils down to the ICT suite, to keep them calm, get
them logged on with their own username & password and to start a lesson. The
lesson is half over by then.

Had I been exposed to the world of programming in a structured way I would
have jumped into it feet first & would no doubt have many years experience by
now. I can vividly remember being around 12 and wishing to know how I could
build websites & to learn how to code and not knowing where to start or who to
ask. I assumed that it was for college/university level. College focused on
building relational databases & the data protection act, Then at University I
was thrown in with already proficient programmers.

Even though I had 16 years within the academic system I feel the majority of
what resonates with me has all been self taught in the last few years since
leaving University.

The new curriculum needs to show pupils exactly what's possible with the power
& scope of CS skills and that it's accessible from a young age.

------
biaxident
Absolutely glad to see this, however, there are some serious concerns which
are addressed at the bottom of the article

"There are, of course, significant challenges to overcome, specifically with
the immediate shortage of computer science teachers."

When I was an ICT teacher I was the only teacher I met who had any programming
experience whatsoever. A large number of these teachers would even struggle
with GCSE level maths and I do find it difficult to see how to government
could train all these teachers to be able to be at a level necessary to teach
any programming skills. Unfortunately those people who are qualified very
rarely enter teaching.

~~~
ig1
Anyone who's studied Maths/Physics/Engineering will have had some programming
experience, so I'm guessing most Maths teachers will. Whether they want to
teach it is another question though.

------
robertskmiles
In case anyone from outside the UK is thinking "Wow, those brits are doing
really well here, I wish my country could take such a sensible approach to
computing education", well you're kind of right, it's an enormous improvement,
but I feel it needs to be made clear just how bad the situation is right now,
before the changes come into effect.

I'm a geek who now has a degree in CS, and at school IT lessons were pretty
much my least favourite lesson apart from Games. We didn't _learn_ _anything_.
That's not hyperbole, I really doubt anyone learned anything in those lessons.
And it wasn't like I was so amazing I knew it all already, everyone knew it
all already. I've been in lessons where I already know the content, and what
happens is people get stuck and you can help them out. That never happened,
everyone already knew what they were doing, because we already wrote our
essays in Word, did our class presentations in Powerpoint and our experimental
data collation in Excel. We knew it already and the exercises were just
asinine.

Everything I knew about CS before I started my degree, I taught myself.

Also, the school I was at was officially an "IT/Maths specialist school" or
something like that (edit:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_and_Computing_Coll...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_and_Computing_College)),
and in the year I graduated it won The Sunday Times' State School of the Year
award.

~~~
UK-Al05
Before I dropped ICT; a project in year 9 involved designing a database. It's
usually taught in access, I did it in MySQL. I received low marks because of
that.

~~~
comm_it
As you should've done. MySQL wasn't being taught.

~~~
UK-Al05
It was meant to be about database design, tables and sql. Not access
specifically. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/11/digital-
lite...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/11/digital-literacy-
case-study) has some more examples.

~~~
comm_it
Yes, and I assume it was to be assessed with what the teacher, and the
curriculum, were instructed to assess.

Just because you feel MySQL is better doesn't mean you should get bonus
points.

I agree using Access to teach database design is stupid, but that's hopefully
something that this will address. Going against the curriculum because you
feel you're above the instructed way is a fantastic way to get low marks.

Fortunately when it comes to university there's usually flexibility if you
want to go above and beyond the minimum, but you still have to tick the boxes
of being able to meet their assessment criteria.

Edit: And what happened in that article is what should've happened, in my
opinion. You don't get bonus points for being a smart arse. IT teaching is
woefully poor, there's no way that teacher could assess a proper app when the
original assignment proposed a mock-app in PowerPoint.

------
shaunxcode
I worked at a publicly funded inner city technology center in one of the
larger UK cities whose mandate was to integrate technology into the curriculum
of the surrounding schools. I can not tell you how much potential was wasted.
Huge computer labs essentially used as annex class rooms. spyware installed to
make sure kids weren't "googling bad things" or "speaking ill of their
teachers in email". There were attempts to teach programming but the few kids
that were interested had to come after hours and use notepad to write
javascript to run in internet explorer from the desktop (not a bad way to
learn just how easy it is really, I am just saying there was no official
support/classes for such programs).

So in short: I really hope this is a sign of change but I also know that money
thrown at these programs is often just squandered on projectors and digital
white boards.

edit: upon reflection I think I feel guilty that I did not do more to make
things the way I envisioned. I could have easily created a "programming class"
image that we flashed the systems with to let them have linux, learn emacs,
vim, apache etc. but I think I was too inexperienced to really be sure of
myself. I'd love the opportunity now as I could offer a scratch/squeak course,
a scheme course, web apps, lua/love for game programming. So many awesome free
tools for every type of aptitude.

------
ec429
All I can say is, why has it taken them so long? Both the problem and the
solution have been obvious for /years/. However, I'm glad the gov't have
finally obtained some clue on this issue.

~~~
wazoox
The problem is mentioned: where to find enough qualified teachers?

~~~
ec429
I suspect that there are plenty of people qualified to teach programming, it's
just that most people currently teaching ICT are not qualified to teach
anything (if the idiots I was taught ICT by are at all representative). If the
government dumped less shit on the head of teachers in general, perhaps they
might be able to attract competent programmers away from industry and into the
teaching rôle. (They would also attract competent people in general, instead
of the current situation where about 5% of teachers are competent people who
love teaching and haven't quite been driven away yet, and the rest are "those
who can't, teach")

~~~
omh
There are certainly people willing & able to teach programming, but most of
them are not currently teachers, and many IT teachers would probably struggle
to teach programming effectively. The article suggests that they want to make
this change in the next academic year, so where are the teachers going to come
from?

~~~
ec429
They could let those people become teachers without having to go through the
rigmarole of largely useless training. The next academic year is nearly eight
months away; that's /bags/ of time.

The barriers to entry to teaching are just another reason why so few good
people go into teaching.

------
joeconway
I've found that ICT has had such a damaging effect on my generation's
perception of what CS is and what the people that do it must be like. I'm
really glad to see it go. It's great to know that people will get a chance to
have some insight into a world which a lot of people would never encounter.

I'd like to think that this was a result of the e-petition started a few
months ago too.

------
estel
Can't quite express how glad I am to see this news. For reasons I can't quite
fathom it's genuinely cheered my day. Kudos to the DfE.

~~~
kenver
I feel the same! It's probably because we have a vested interest in this area,
but putting that aside it's nice to see something coming from the government
that I think is a genuinely good thing (for a change?).

------
anons2011
I think this is a great move. Although it would be interesting to see how many
people actually take the new subject.

The problem at the moment is as the article says, just get used to Microsoft
GUIs and not know anything behind them. And what happens is people do other
things in the lesson, as they get bored, or find it to easy so they don't even
bother. The whole MS access stuff can be very dull.

They could even bring in sections of web development into the new course, ie
setting up a LAMP environment and learning PHP. And not just learning to
create table (shudders) based rubbish in Dreamweaver or the like.

Or on the comp sci/software dev side of things learn Java programming for
Android. Although I would think that iOS dev would be a step too far at this
stage - not sure?

Or maybe start teaching them a high level languages such as Python or Perl to
help give them a good understanding of programming practises etc.

~~~
cobrophy
ICT is compulsory (as mentioned in the Guardian article,
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/11/michael-
gove-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/11/michael-gove-boring-
it-lessons) ) so I presume this will be too.

~~~
anons2011
Sorry yes - I was thinking GCSE level and higher.

------
rmc
This is great news. However just think of how hard it is to hire software
developers. Now how the hell are schools (with fixed salary caps and a work
environment filled with children) going to compete?

~~~
extension
They can't, so just throw some mathy teacher in there and hopefully the
students will more or less teach themselves, and if you're really lucky, each
other. That's how every high school CS class I've ever taken has worked. It's
not ideal, but it's better than no CS at all.

------
tobylane
ICT is learning how to use computers efficiently, how to do a non-computer job
like accounting on computers., basically how to use Office. Computer Science
is different, and now that home computers are common enough could easily be
done at the same time (school years) as ICT. This divide of using or creating
goes on forever, my options of courses for next year are Business IT
(supporting those people who are just using Office) or Programming (making
programs, though possibly only in Java).

------
hopeless
Back in 1993 I was doing GCSE Computer Studies which included everything from
desktop publishing to writing simple BASIC programs. But when I want to
continue this into A-level, I had to personally convince the computer studies
teacher to let me do it on my own since the school didn't offer it as an
option. In the end, I did a mostly self-taught AS Computer Studies with some
guidance from the teacher.

I was extremely lucky to have a well-resourced school and a flexible teacher

------
vukk
This interview with Simon Peyton-Jones seems very relevant, the points made
are so similar to what Michael Gove says here that it makes one wonder :)

relevant part starts at 19:19
[http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/YOW-2011-Simon-
Peyton...](http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/YOW-2011-Simon-Peyton-Jones-
Closer-to-Nirvana)

~~~
batterseapower
Simon has been doing a _ton_ of work behind the scenes getting a decent
curriculum in place for computing in the UK, playing a major role in a group
of educators tackling the issue. I would not be surprised if Michael's words
were lifted directly from one of his reports :-)

------
benregn
I loved the picture's caption accompanying the article: "Schools will be free
to use teaching resources that will equip pupils for the 21st Century". The
picture then shows young pupils using aging CRTs. It made me smile :)

------
mjwalshe
The problem is that Google and a lot of newer companies fetishise CS ie
computer science to an insane degree. What indistry realy wants and needs is
some one who can take a problem and produce a suitable solution which is much
more computer engineering.

What you don’t want is more ivory tower geeks writing in lisp who obsesses
about algorithmic purity and can produce noddy systems that work for some
cases but will break badly in the real world.

One example from the 80's I was helping build billing systems for BT I also
had to run the system and make sure it all worked properly. The first time we
hit £1,000,000 in a month (about $5,000,000) in today’s money ) we had a small
celebration and I recall the CTO (one of Vints reports I believe) nudging me
and saying "this had better be right or we are both out of a Job"

Its like saying we need more engineers like Ross Brawn I know lets train more
physicists 10 years later you have 200 Brian Cox's and not 195 Ross Brawns and
5 Brian Cox's working at Cern

~~~
saljam
I don't see why CS can't “take a problem and produce a suitable solution.”
Understanding the essential underlying theory (complexity theory, etc.) is
essential to solve these problems.

Furthermore, not all Computer Science degrees are purely theoretical course
where all you do is esoteric logics and category theory. If anything, I think
there's too _little_ theory in the UK's CS courses these days.

~~~
groovy2shoes
> If anything, I think there's too little theory in the UK's CS courses these
> days.

This has been my experience with CS courses in the US as well.

