

UK government response to my letter about programming in schools - jgrahamc
http://blog.jgc.org/2011/09/letter-to-michael-gove-secretary-of.html

======
samarudge
While I'm aware this may get downvoted to the depths, I feel I have to say it.

Why should kids be taught programming instead of reading, writing, language
and maths?

If the curriculum was changed to include programming, it would almost
certainly reduce the funding and time put into other, more important subjects.
While a good understanding of computers will help with almost any job in the
future, unless you're going into computing as a career, learning specifically
programming will be absolutely no help. Programming has many benefits, but
seeing as there are going to be cuts to educational funding, increases in
class sizes etc. adding an extra topic that will only be useful to a small
number of people would be wasteful. I agree that 'IT' taught in schools needs
to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, rather than saying "this
is how to use Powerpoint", it should be teaching kids how to find things out
for themselves. But that is the same with nearly every other subject.

If you took a random person you passed on a busy London street at lunch time,
how much better do you think they would be able to do their job if they knew
how to program? I'd guess that for the majority of people it would make little
to no difference. If someone wants to learn to program they can take it upon
themselves to learn, like if someone wants to learn how to cook, or ride a
bike, or play piano.

Am I looking at this the wrong way? Is there something I've missed?

Post; All the above being taken into account, their response was not
acceptable. I'm sure they have to put up with a lot of nuts but that was a
well thought out, well written email that made some valid points.

~~~
stan_rogers
The word _programming_ is distorting the real value of the subject, I think.
It's easy to think of programming as something that is done with and to
computers exclusively, but that's a sort of guilt by association.

Programming, at its base, is really a method for understanding and defining a
process. It's about breaking a big task down into its component pieces. It's
about turning one large, nearly intractable problem into a series of easily
understood and fundamentally soluable problems.

If programming is taught in this context, with an emphasis on methods for
problem-solving in general rather than language syntax in particular, its
utility in the everyday life of the average person becomes a lot more obvious.
I used simple programming as a part of a worker re-education program that
included basic literacy and numeracy, and it proved to be very effective in
the overall success of the students -- even with no expectation that
programming would play a part in their later lives. It made other things
easier for them to do, and if that's the only value that the "average" student
gets out of a programming course, it seems like enough, doesn't it?

------
chegra
From reading John's letter, I was thinking bet you these guys are going to
interpret it as him seeking some sort of endorsement.

I don't think he should have mentioned Raspberry Pi. It takes the letter into
areas that you wouldn't want to discuss.

The letter lacked few concrete examples of what should be done to bring UK
back on top of the computing world. Do we bring back the TV program? What
exactly do we teach? What language do we teach? What else can be done? Could
you provide examples of other country improving their computer literacy
successfully. Being too vague means the person who is reading the article will
have to think for themselves. Ideally, you would want them to do as little
work as possible.

I think the letter was too long. For the first couple paragraphs, I was
thinking would he hurry up and get to it; I need to get back to programming. I
think the people in the government office reaction would be worst.

You fail to state your qualifications. In an ideal world, an appeal to
authority should not work, but the care in which your material is being
handled is some function of the person who writes it.

~~~
cabalamat
> _From reading John's letter, I was thinking bet you these guys are going to
> interpret it as him seeking some sort of endorsement. I don't think he
> should have mentioned Raspberry Pi. It takes the letter into areas that you
> wouldn't want to discuss._

From a point of view of the sort of people who in fact would read the letter,
you might be right.

But from the point of view of the ideal recipient of the letter -- someone who
cares about computing education -- giving examples of relevant projects is the
right thing to do, because examples help to get the point across.
Unfortunately politicians don't get computers or the internet, which is why we
need new ones who do.

Next May, Pirate Party UK will contest elections across the country; I myself
intend to stand as a candidate for Edinburgh Council. We're hoping to
duplicate our recent success in Berlin across the UK.

If Pirates are elected and we receive similar letters about computing
education, we won't simply ignore them, we'll act on them.

------
wccrawford
"Therefore, we do not endorse, fund or promote specific resources or
activities for use in schools."

Holy crap, nobody else agrees with this? This is a government entity refusing
to grasp more control than it should have! They are actively saying that they
trust their school system to improve itself organically, and they aren't not
going to slow it down by mandating the tools used.

Had he left it at 'We need to promote computer understanding, not just usage',
they might have bit on that and considered it as part of their mission. But
instead, the mention of the Raspberry Pi made it sound like a sales call, and
they don't do that. They aren't going to mandate or even recommend individual
tools.

~~~
ErrantX
True; and I agree this is theoretically a nice thing.

However the net result of this is that, to take an example, school IT services
range from the sublime to the dire. Almost all of them are hugely expensive
contracts to major firms (say, BT) and tend to consist of poorly paid tech
staff (often shared amongst a school district), old out-dated technology and
overly-complex infrastructure.

At my mum's school, a primary, the teachers had 3 "new" laptops each one year,
because they could not get the infrastructure right...

This is mirrored across the whole system; no one has a proper budget or
equipment recommendations from the DOE. And as a result you get a hit-and-miss
situation, with some schools well equipped and others a mess.

More often than not teachers will spend out of their own pocket just to be
able to adequately teach a subject.

Mandating every aspect of education would be bad, I agree. But affirmative
action to end the waste, provide support for equipment purchase etc. would be
_very_ welcome!

------
AlexC04
I was a high school ICT (computer) teacher in the UK for five years. Unless
there are some serious changes to the political climate, programming will
never fit well in schools.

The biggest reason being that programming is hard... which means that some
students won't do well.

There is a very serious problem with the politics of the UK education system
because of the results-oriented culture.

Firstly, OFSTED publishes a list of the best schools in the UK. These results
are based on inspections, but the inspections are just a sham/cover to allow
them to rank schools based on their test results.

You see, kids who get graded in the UK school system all write the exact same
exam, in the exact same hour globally (accounting for timezones). This
standardized testing, allows for students and schools to be compared against a
single "fair" yardstick.

Now schools that have the students who get the highest average score are
declared "the best" (after a cursory, sham inspection) the ones that score
lowest are declared "the worst" and sometimes closed.

So... student performance is suddenly directly related to teacher income.

So teachers start teaching kids how to pass the test. Administrators guide
their students into classes that have higher averages... you know, the ones
that are easier to pass?

That's part of the reason why the GNVQ in ICT became so popular - the least
able students could get 4 "A" grade credits easily. I mean, students who
sometimes had to be reminded to breathe could walk out with 4 "A _" credits.

Some schools who learned how to exploit that system found themselves
"vaulting" up the league tables ... bonuses all arround! Headteachers were
suddenly being classed as "Superheads" ... silly crap like that.

Anyways, trouble with a comprehensive "proper" programming course... it's
hard. Nobody is getting a knighthood in education for doing it the hard-way.

I tried teaching a group of 12 year olds how to write video games in flash.
They not only loved it, but it wasn't that hard. One or two got as far as a
working PONG. Unfortunately, I was so far off curriculum at that point it
wasn't funny. I could only give programming lessons as a special treat.

The rest of the time it was where to click in Microsoft office.

If we were able to do programming at the High School level, maybe I wouldn't
have left teaching. The politics of OFSTED would probably have driven me out
anyways the UK education system is actually doing a huge disservice to kids.

_HOWEVER* politicians can "look tough" by spouting bollocks about how strict
they are with respect to educational standards. Truth is they're light years
behind places like Australia and Canada. Worst part is the politicians of the
world all seem to be scrambling to match the UK system (because it gives them
something to look tough about).

~~~
anon1385
The reason is quite simple: zealous adherence to the religion of free-markets.
According to the government parents are forever demanding 'choice' (actually I
think what most of them want is for the local school to be decent, and not to
have to ship their kid 50 miles a day to some distant school…). So of course
parents must be provided with some way to compare schools, no matter how
statistically meaningless it might be, and thus league tables were given great
significance.

The current government plan to take this even further by allowing private
companies to run state school _for profit_. Thus further incentivising
cheating, manipulation of test results, pushing students into easy subjects,
teaching to tests, not allowing entry to students who won't perform well, not
allowing students to sit tests if they might not get top marks, underfunding
of 'hard' subjects and so on. Parent's power to actually complain about a
school is reduced as well: schools will no longer be run by democratically
elected local authorities, but by the largely unelected board of governors. If
you have a complaint they won't deal with (most schools won't even tell you
the names of the governors), you have to go directly to the secretary of state
and, as this submission demonstrates, getting an answer from Mr Gove is very
difficult (no doubt you would be fobbed off with a "we don't interfere with
the running of individual schools" response).

~~~
AlexC04
Excellent points and I agree completely. They're also already in pretty deep
with respect to privatization. Since (at least one of) the curriculum
publishers and standardized testing boards (eg: Edexcel
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edexcel>) is privately owned.

That leads to tremendous investment in lobbying and special interest type
stuff, but actually takes away an individual teacher's ability to tailor the
curriculum to the interests of the students.

------
arethuza
What do you think of the Computing Higher we have north of the border?

[http://www.sqa.org.uk/pastpapers/papers/papers/2011/H_Comput...](http://www.sqa.org.uk/pastpapers/papers/papers/2011/H_Computing_all_2011.pdf)

I had a look at it when this topic last came up and I was quite impressed -
Prolog in schools!

~~~
jgrahamc
Every time I read about the Scottish educational system I am impressed. Damn
those Graham-Cummings who left Scotland for England :-)

------
Donch
I totally agree with John's letter. When I was in primary school we had access
to a BBC Micro with a Logo turtle which we could program ourselves. In senior
school we had a BBC Master with the Domesday project, which was amazing at the
time with decent resolution photos! The school was also lucky enough to have a
ring network of BBC Micros with a shared Winchester Hard Drive. Later, we got
access to Acorn Archimedes computers.

The thing that all these BBC/Acorn computers had in common was immediate
access to a BASIC interpreter, and with the Archimedes, inline assembler. We
had a great teacher who taught us how to use binary in bitwise operations. We
were encouraged to write a program for GCSE computer studies and I wrote a
library catalogue database without a backend database! A friend wrote a
graphical calculator that he then went on to sell commercially. There was a
regular Computer Club every Wednesday after school where you could do whatever
you wanted - play games, write code, use *SHEET to do some maths...

All these things propelled me, later in life, to become a software developer
and I'm glad I was given the skills necessary from school. Today, it's all
about trying to get spyware infested computers to print from Microsoft Word in
less than half an hour. A low-level hardware platform that is instantly
programmable is a noble aim and I salute the Raspberry Pi chaps and hope you
succeed!

~~~
shiven
The good ol' days! I started programming with BASIC on BBC Micro Model B, in
high school, and absolutely loved it. I guess a big reason for igniting my
passion were the amazing books that came with it. Huge, glossy pages in full
color with what were to me the most beautiful graphics. I remember writing
programs on paper and then typing them in later --- debugging beforehand by
running the program in my head! I wrote a graphics calculator for a science
fair at school and remember having the whole program memorized!!!

Aah, glory days ;-)

------
tcarnell
Well as nobody tought the founders to Google, Facebook or Microsoft to program
a computer - especially at school, there is absolutely no logical reason to
teach kids such a specific skill. The programmers I know, and notable the
better ones are all self-taught (with the help of the astonishingly open and
supportive IT community).

I think the author of the letter is somewhat confused as to Eric Schmidt's
sentiment. I think schools could, or perhaps should provide better resources
and encourage students to learn more about computer technology, but I agree
with the other comments that core subjects like language, maths and science
are far more important.

However, there is no reason why teachers could not discuss, when relevant the
history, technology, people and science behind the British computer
engineering legacy.

~~~
wccrawford
I got my start in Elementary school. Sadly, it was an advanced class and not
available to everyone. (You had to skip a day of regular classes each week,
and your grades couldn't fall behind in them... So you essentially did 6 days
worth of school work every week, instead of 5.)

They taught us the basics of programming, and that was about it. But it was
enough to light the flame and I've been passionate about it ever since.

It's okay for people to be bad at some things, or even not care about them.
Schools should spend more time introducing arts and skills to students. Let
the students decide what they want to study beyond the basics that everyone
needs to know.

------
wbhart
When I read the first letter I carelessly didn't check the header and assumed
that it was the "UK government response..." that you spoke of. I thought, wow,
someone in our government is really switched on. They've cross referenced
their letter, they are aware of the history of the subject and they understand
why Britain is so woefully behind in this area. And moreover, they are
reaching out to computing experts (albeit ones that contacted them first) to
help with the project and meet with them in person. Awesome.

Then I read the second letter and recognised the unimaginative, bureaucratic
style that British people have come to love and cherish. "Oh, how can I get
rid of this person and make them someone else's problem."

Internationally, attitudes towards programming in academic circles are finally
changing. There is right at this moment a real sea-change in the air. I don't
know if that is due to Veovodsky's work on a new "Univalent Foundations for
Mathematics" or whether people are just waking up to how much work it actually
takes to bring academic computing work up to industry standards. But there is
a change.

Unfortunately I am yet to see evidence of it in Britain, however. Students
still remain woefully underprepared in this area and don't seem to develop a
natural affinity for programming except in extremely rare cases. And the
academic attitude to computing is still very standoffish on the whole.

------
pbhjpbhj
TBH they can't really get that many correspondence from people who're in such
an elevated position in their industry. Indeed I'd be amazed if they've had
any feedback on computing curriculum from more than one or two people of
similar standing. In which case the response is pretty poor to say the least.

To get a reasoned response I'd imagine you'd have to get together a group of
cronies from the BCS or similar and send an officially sanctioned letter?

------
tomelders
Sign the petition:
<https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/15218>

------
majmun
> " Then they suggest that I might like to contact every single local
> authority and school in the country. "

I suggest that you stop complaining and do just that, with programming this
work can be made easy. and fun.

First start with LAs than go lower level to schools. This is one way you can
prove that programming is useful for people to know. And you should report
back to PCU your results. And thanks them for advice.

------
Maro
I'm not sure why this was posted here. Based on the response, you're knocking
on the wrong door?

 _However, the role of this Department is limited to setting the policy
framework of the National Curriculum of what is taught in terms of content,
attainment targets and how performance is assessed and reported. Therefore, we
do not endorse, fund or promote specific resources or activities for use in
schools._

~~~
jcromartie
Because teaching programming is a broad policy decision. It's exactly the sort
of thing the particular department would be in charge of. If JGC had merely
been suggesting a certain programming language or teaching software, then the
response would have been appropriate. As it is, it sounds like they didn't
understand what JGC wrote.

"Be it with Raspberry Pi computers in schools, or with some other hardware, we
need to get back on top."

Rasberry Pi was just a suggestion. The broader idea of "teaching programming"
was ignored.

~~~
Maro
You are right, his email was broader and not just specific to Raspberry Pi.

Although I'm still not sure what the OP expected and why this was posted here.

~~~
DanBC
People here will know more than most the strong history of computing that
Britain has. Significant contributions to many areas of computing have come
from Britain. Just computer games in the UK is a huge industry. The OP thought
that there is a lack of programming experienced by young people. Other people
agree; see Raspberry Pi project for an example. IT in English schools is
pretty poor, there's some simplistic "How to use a word processor, how to use
a spreadsheet" but nothing in depth.

Skills used in programming overlap many other areas of learning. Gather
information; reduce the problem; attack each part; plan it out; step it
through; iterate.

The UK has some scarily poor implementations of big IT projects. Hugely late,
over budget, broken - and those are the ones that make it to completion.
(Although I welcome any information about the good systems.)

We as a nation desperately need people who can program. Not just regular web /
app / desktop programming, but also low quantity high quality machine shop
style CNC / Pick and Place / etc manufacturing.

The fact that the department gave a useless reply is no surprise, but is
disappointing.

~~~
Maro
"The fact that the department gave a useless reply is no surprise."

That's exactly why I asked why it was posted here. This just isn't noteworthy.
It seems to me it's being upvoted because of the OP.

------
tim_iles
For whatever e-petitions might be worth, here exists a "Teach our kids to
code" petition <http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/15081>, started by
Emma Mulqueeny ([http://mulqueeny.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/teach-our-kids-
to-...](http://mulqueeny.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/teach-our-kids-to-code-e-
petition/))

------
joecorcoran
I know somebody who writes these kind of response letters as part of her job
in another area of the civil service. Her advice is to write back – outlining
that your letter was misunderstood – but write to your MP rather than directly
to Michael Gove. Apparently letters addressed to MPs are subject to a higher
level of checking and are less likely to receive stock responses.

------
coob
Ignoring their response, and addressing your point about the Pi:

Why should we focus on that when kids have a much more powerful and easier to
use bit of kit in their pocket?

Surely using something simple like LiveCode on an iOS/Android touch device
will be much more interesting and engaging, whilst still giving a grounding in
the fundamentals.

~~~
jgrahamc
The main issue would be uniformity across schools. It would be easier to have
a single platform (such as Pi, but I'm not wed to that one) than iOS/Android.
Also, not clear that all children have smartphones at age 9.

------
JoshPic
I think it makes sense to first teach problem solving and logic from an early
age, then maybe touch a little on actual programming later on.

Yes, programming may not be useful to most people, but problem solving,
however, is. The ability to break a seemingly insurmountable problem into a
number of smaller feasibly possible problems is an incredibly valuable skill.
Then at a later stage, maybe mid-secondary school, a short programming project
could be introduced, drawing from the skills learned in Logic and Problem
Solving lessons. Those who become interested in programming are then
encouraged to continue learning to program and those who aren't still have the
skills learned in Logic and Problem Solving that they can apply across a vast
number of careers.

------
corin_
This letter received in response really doesn't mean anything, it's just a
generic "thank you for contacting us" letter. You'll (usually, 99 times out of
100) get a similar equivilent if you ever contact your MP, although in those
cases it will generally be even less involved in the subject, along the lines
of "Dear name, I agree that this matter is important and that is why I support
this matter, yours, MP"

It shouldn't be taken as an indication of how well the government is handling
this issue, just that it was treated as "yet another thing for someone
unimportant to reply to". (That's not to say that they _are_ treating it
well... just that it can't be judged from this letter.)

~~~
TheCapn
You make a good point. Everyone feels that _their_ voice should be heard but
forget that the government represents _a lot_ of people. If they personally
responded to each letter that was received then I'd gamble they'd be doing
their job much much worse than they potentially already are.

A response from them at all means that someone took enough time to count your
statistic for/against such a topic. That's a stronger position then yelling at
the TV hoping they'll hear you.

------
droz
The ultimate goal ought to be to teach students Computational thinking. How it
is taught - mathematics, programming or otherwise - is irrelevant.

------
mattmanser
Is an email to Michael Gove really the best way to get his attention?

This is a classic fob off email by a gatekeeper underling who has no idea who
you are.

~~~
jgrahamc
And ironically Michael Gove does know who I am because he was in the room next
to me at Oxford. I figured this was the best way to get to him since he has
personally responded to me in the past.

~~~
cturner
He's not going to have time to open all his mail.

Do the same letter handwritten. Put a post-it note on the front saying
"roommate from college" so whoever opens his mail will know to pass it
through. Send it snail-mail.

Having said that, I think your letter had no point, and getting upset about
the response is crazy. Your letter has a long introduction and then asks for
hand-waving assistance, "The project does not need money, but it does need the
sort of wind in its sails that government can provide." What does that mean?
Why are you looking for the government to do technology leadership when it's
been reliably shown to be rubbish at it?

Here's something you could do. Find a way to get geeks teaching classes to
kids using Rasberry Pis. I'm in London and have thought this would be fun to
do but I'm crap at setting things up. If you set it up and want a lecturer my
email's in my profile and I can probably find others.

~~~
timthorn
The mbed team in Cambridge has been very successful at engaging with local
schools - I can also hook you up with them.

------
joelhooks
Government education is tuned for creating hordes of marginally competent
workers well versed in the carrot<->stick of long term repetitive menial task
work. This isn't an accident and is highly unlikely to change anytime soon. To
solve the problem for our family we choose to home educate our kids. It is
awesome.

------
jcromartie
It's obvious that they either A) didn't read the letter or B) had _no clue_
what JGC was talking about.

------
DanielStraight
So try again.

I'm not trying to be an ass.

Alan Turing didn't get his apology because of one email, and your country's
schools aren't going to get programming classes because of one email either.
If it's important, fight for it. Focusing on the setbacks is just going to
bring you down.

~~~
jgrahamc
Don't worry. I'm not very good at giving up.

~~~
DanielStraight
Don't worry either, I didn't expect you to. Really, I was trying to be
encouraging. Just didn't know how to make it come out that way.

Best of luck in yet another "ridiculous" quest.

------
DanBC
Michael Gove is the one who talks about "Newton's laws of thermodynamics", so
what did the OP expect?
([http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jun/18/michael-
gove...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jun/18/michael-gove-exams-
gcse-schools))

------
bdfh42
It is lamentable but entirely indicative of the results of modern UK education
that Sandra Duggan is clearly unable to either read or comprehend an email.

A politically correct response is what is important these days - ignore the
ideas, ignore the challenge.

------
nickthedart
Meanwhile, another bit of the gov't appears to be working on this!
[http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/09/16/247916/Gov...](http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/09/16/247916/Government-
sends-GCSE-IT-back-to-school.htm)

------
Silhouette
Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I don't see anything wrong with the reply
(apart from the careless mis-spelling, obviously).

I don't know much about either John Graham-Cumming or Michael Gove personally.
I do know that this is a long and, dare I say, rather rambling e-mail, which
to me reads more like a lecture written to look good for a public audience
than a sincere request for action by a government minister. Perhaps that is
just my natural scepticisim talking -- I have no reason to believe that John
actually meant it that way, and I have nothing against him based on his
comments on HN -- but keep in mind that civil servants have finely tuned
senses about such writing, because a lot of the people who send it are trying
to set the minister up in one way or another.

A more practical problem is that the original e-mail contains almost no
actionable content. The only specific detail is Raspberry Pi, which is not
mentioned until the second half of the message and by the author's own
description is not yet ready. Given how many doomed government IT projects
surely get described as "close to completion" right up until they fail with a
multi-million-pound write-off, it would hardly be surprising if no senior
government figure wanted to be associated with something potentially toxic
like that at this stage.

Even if the minister were willing to take a look, if it is indeed contrary to
government policy to promote such specific details on a national basis, then
there is little the responding civil servant can do to help except explain
what the policy is and who might be able to help instead, which they did.
Multi-level governments inherently set rules for which matters are to be
handled at which levels, and it is futile to propose deviating from such
fundamental rules in isolated cases like this.

I suspect John's intended point might have been more about the benefits of
teaching kids to code in general, but I'm afraid that just doesn't come across
from the message unless your audience is likely to read between the lines (see
my comment about public audience above). In any case, while it may be a
perfectly reasonable position to take, nothing in the e-mail suggests any
specific action the minister could take to further that goal, so at best it is
going to achieve a +1 in an "issues of interest" spreadsheet and a courtesy
reply.

I do love the final comment, asking for a personal meeting with a secretary of
state based on a quick e-mail, though. You've got to love someone with the
chops to go for that right from the start. Maybe I just went to the wrong
university... :-)

~~~
argv_empty
_Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I don't see anything wrong with the reply
(apart from the careless mis-spelling, obviously)._

I have a particular problem with it: the response to "this subject ought to be
included in the curriculum" was "we aren't the ones to make that change, all
we do is decide what's in the curriculum."

------
tomelders
I challenge anyone to get a response from an MP that doesn't include the word
"however", followed by a complete dismissal.

~~~
pnathan
In my occasional letters to Congressmen, I usually get, "Thanks for your
letter", followed by a dismissal. :-)

------
getonit
Dear John, Whoosh! Not my problem. Love, the Government.

------
dramaticus3
Kinder, Küche, Kirche

Kaiser, Krieg, Kanonen

