There is a nationwide push for switching out IT for Computer Science and no one is as glad as me. After eight years of teaching spreadsheets, desktop publishing and (*shudder*) slideshows, I was about ready to start looking for another career. My three years of Computer Science at University was not being particularly well used.
No matter your thoughts on Michael Gove, I am thankful for his support of the Computer Science movement. Looking at some of the leading schools from the 2015 league tables, Pate’s Grammar School in Gloucestershire (#1 GCSE results 2015) offers Computing GCSE on top of core, non-examined IT. Computing is also an option at The Tiffin’s Girls School and The Reading School (#2 and #3 respectively). I would not be surprised if they move out of the options pool and into the core curriculum in the next few years.
Through my current role at the UTC I have had a lot of contact with the technology industry. I have had numerous meetings with companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle and Fujitsu. I would heartily recommend members of SLT in any School or College to seek out working partnerships with local industries. I have been amazed at how willing even large multinational companies with billions of dollars of annual turnover are to get directly involved with and contribute towards education.
There are many invaluable things I learn by working with industry on a regular basis. Some are little titbits – one of the world’s leading consultancy firms prefer Java and C# knowledge to any other programming language when recruiting IT graduates, for example. But from all the contact I have had with companies large and small, one consistent message has come through to me – they struggle to find young people with adequate coding ability from the UK talent pool.
How long would a big multinational technology firm keep its Europe or worldwide HQ in the UK if they have to recruit all their coding talent from elsewhere?
And you can think again if you believe that this problem only affects the technology industry. I have also worked closely with employees at director level with a rail company and a supermarket. Coding skills are needed across the whole of UK industry. You want to go into graphics? Vector graphics can be coded and Photoshop runs complex algorithms that the best artists need to understand. You want to be a sporting hero? You need a level of technical performance analysis.
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