
Why I Despair for Computer Literacy in the UK - CM30
https://artplusmarketing.com/why-i-despair-for-computer-literacy-in-the-uk-b5b82383fd2b
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CM30
Yeah, I don't usually post an article I've written myself here, since most
aren't relevant to Hacker News. But in this case, I think it's important for
as many people to know about the state of the UK education and computer
science teaching's terrible quality as possible.

We cannot afford to see kids leave school at 16 (or even start university to
learn computer science at 18) with no knowledge of how to program or develop
anything.

What's worse, this isn't even ancient history. I mean, I'm 26 at the moment,
and this is literally all I was taught about IT and computer science through
high school and sixth form college. We've got a whole generation (or more) of
young people who could be getting started in the tech industry but don't
anything other than how to type out a few documents in Microsoft Word. I
actually suspect it might even be one of the reasons why London doesn't have
as many successful startups as the US and Silicon Valley. Because the
skillsets necessary to succeed with a web business just aren't here.

Either way, it needs to be fixed pronto. Otherwise we will continue to have a
situation where most of the UK knows nothing more than how to use Microsoft
Office programs and the odd web browser.

~~~
flukus
If it was anything like my school (although we did have proper IT course in
the final 2 years) they don't even teach kids to use word well. It's just rote
memorization of a specific version of word. We learned much more about
computers trying to get games to work on DOS because we had to do stuff like
enable extended memory.

~~~
CM30
Yeah, it was all based on one of the Windows XP versions of Microsoft Office
when I was at school. So the skillsets likely wouldn't transfer perfectly into
the newer ones with the ribbon UI.

And playing games on DOS? If that was in school, you had a far more enjoyable
IT education than I ever did. Don't think we ever got to play more than a few
flash games in class, and even that was only when the teacher wasn't looking.

If you mean at home... then yeah, that's a possibility lost for kids who grew
up with Windows XP or later. Very few kids now would even see why they'd want
to play a game (or use any program for that matter) built for MS DOS.

