A report recently published by the Corporate IT Forum Education and Skills Commission has highlighted what it sees as grave problems with IT education and careers guidance in schools, leading to a severe skills crisis for the UK as a whole. The 20 recommendations it makes in response to this assessment of the situation include a requirement for schools to ring-fence money for careers guidance and to provide face-to-face advice and STEM careers events for all Y9 students; government funding enabling every school to have a STEM or computer club; a programme to get well qualified IT teachers into every school; and an immediate pooling programme between schools of the limited number of specialist IT teachers available currently. The Corporate IT Forum is the UK’s representative body for the largest users of IT in the UK, so definitely a communal voice worth listening to, one would imagine – however, whether pressurised budgets and Mr Gove’s current Ebacc-centric plans for the curriculum will allow for such proactive strategies remains to be seen…
