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Gove plans ICT overhaul in schools

The education secretary promises ICT classes in school will improve with the arrival of computer science teaching.

By Tom Brewster, 11 Jan 2012 at 12:19

Much-maligned ICT classes in school are set for the scrapheap, after education secretary Michael Gove announced plans for the existing curriculum to be canned.

The changes would allow schools to create their own curricula based around computer science to equip pupils with the IT skills employers are looking for, Gove announced at the BETT conference today in London.

Gove's plans for the reformation of IT education have come after heavy criticism of the current curriculum.

Last year, Google chairman Eric Schmidt claimed the education system was not inspiring enough kids to learn science, maths or engineering skills, hindering the chances of producing a future digital genius.

Technology in schools will no longer be micro-managed by Whitehall.

Others, including the British Computer Society, have claimed the current curriculum is dull, whilst others have derided it as harmful and irrelevant.

The number of students opting to take ICT GCSE and A-level courses has also dwindled in recent years.

"As the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, recently lamented, we in England have allowed our education system to ignore our great heritage and we are paying the price for it," Gove said. "Our school system has not prepared children for this new world.

"Technology in schools will no longer be micro-managed by Whitehall. By withdrawing the Programme of Study, we’re giving teachers freedom over what and how to teach, revolutionising ICT as we know it.

"Universities, businesses and others will have the opportunity to devise new courses and exams. In particular, we want to see universities and businesses create new high-quality Computer Science GCSEs, and develop curricula encouraging schools to make use of the brilliant Computer Science content available on the web."

A consultation on withdrawing the statutory Programme of Study from September 2012 will begin next week.

The devolving of control over schools falls in line with Gove's other decisions in education and the Conservative's Big Society ideology. The education secretary has been a big supporter of parent-run schools in recent months, which could be set up in shops and houses, according to reports.

Positive reaction

There has already been a response from the education community. Pearson, the education company that owns the Edexcel exam board, today announced plans to pilot a 'Next Generation' Computing Science GCSE from September 2012.

The organisation said it was working with some of the world's leading tech companies to draw up a course design.

Pearson said it will also be reviewing its existing Edexcel GCSE ICT qualifications, as well as its BTEC and DIDA courses in ICT to see what changes could be made in light of the Government's loosening of control.

"In the age of the laptop and the smartphone, it should be obvious to all of us in education that young people want to be able to develop their own software, write their own programmes and turn those ideas into great technology companies," said president of Pearson UK Rod Bristow.

"We need to give them the basics to go on and study computing and get jobs in the technology sector."

Awarding body OCR is showing off its own Cambridge Nationals in ICT qualifications for 14 to 16 year olds at the BETT conference.

Due to be launched in in schools and colleges for teaching from September 2012, the Cambridge Nationals are designed to build "depth and breadth of understanding of ICT systems," whilst introducing programming and coding.

Initial reaction to the Government's announcement from the tech sector has been positive.

"It is essential to the future of the British economy that we address the shortcomings in ICT education and help school children and students to maximise their potential – failure to do this will result in a detrimental skills shortage for IT in the very near future," said Phil Smith CEO Cisco UK and Ireland.

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4 comments

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Positively silly

I note rather wryly that all the endorsements come from the Commercial sector. nary an Educationalist to be seen. And no wonder.

Nobody really thinks the current ICT is good enough, and the best solution would be to remove it from the Secondary curriculum, and provide a more sophisticated 'Computer Studies' option for those who want it.

What is NOT viable is to introduce any kind of compulsory 'Computer Studies lite' with programming & theory.

By wittgenfrog on Wednesday Jan 11

Poor foundations...

Call me "old fashioned" if you will, but surely there is a requirement to ensure that children are taught the importance of spelling and grammar before worrying about computer programming?
Many children don't "get" that the rules of grammar and spelling are fundamental.
I might ignore the - seemingly - "lucky dip" of "they're, there and their" (not to mention "to, two and too") and I gave up being concerned about the peppering of text with decorative apostrophes years ago, but...
I'm not a software compiler, so I can see through and understand what is "meant" rather than what is written.
Frustration related to "Sir, this isn't working!" would be minimised if the grammar, spelling, syntax and semantics of the language we all use every day was stressed as being of vital importance to communication and, therefore, of vital importance to programming where there is limited opportunity to provide ambiguous commands which will still be understood.

By MarkXEvans on Friday Jan 13

Same as - so why should this work now?

There was a computer studies course, which included programing and had content and material based upon what industry said they needed. It failed both to deliver and to get students interested. Many took this as they thought they could spend two years playing games. Then comes along ICT and still the same old spreadsheet and word processing etc but not advanced skills even for those able to program VBA and be creative in the process. Most programmes take weeks, months, even years. Many require teams and no under 16 is likely to have the time to make a game to match anything they play and still get through the rest of their GCSE examinations. That does not mean programing and computer science could not be a worth while subject for GCSE - only why was it not so any time over the past 30 years?

By Ip_gfge5146c4406 on Sunday Jan 15

Another new IT syllabus

In the years I have been teaching and examining both A level IT and Computing the former has been seen as easy but boring, the latter somewhat harder but requiring more hardware time, however the numbers for Computing declined as those for IT rose. IT only gave students the ability to use computers, programming them was NOT part of the process. To program requires knowledge (of syntax etc.) dedication and a good deal of problem solving ability. Students who often had this mix of skills were put off doing a computing subject as it had less kudos and future use when applying for university. The ideas of Michael Gove that students could produce games rather than play them is good BUT as noted in another comment the time required to produce one of the games at present on the market is tens of thousands of hours apart from the art work etc. It is NOT possible given a subject time of approx 5 hours a week MAX that a student could gain the skills, even if working as a team, to produce such an end product. Then how would you determine which student in the team had made what contribution - remember the idea is still to get a qualification at the end of the 2 years of study.
General ICT courses are just to be able to use a computer - rather like we also need to be able to read write and manipulate number. ICT classes are not really to teach people to program etc. there is simply not the hours in the day, the hardware available or the teachers to do this for an entire cohort. Finally it is unlikely that everyone, even if given the opportunity, would want to program - many chose IT simply because they did not wish the hard work of learning a programming language needed in the Computing course.

By Mycomment on Monday Jan 16