Q: Professor Richard Noss: From the London Knowledge Lab, University of London and also the Technology Enhanced Learning Research Programme.
I agree with every word you said, David, and I speak as an ex-mathematician. I ought to just say as an aside, computer science is not the only subject where mathematics has been dropped from many university courses, engineering is another one. Rachel looked shocked when you said it, and she looks even more shocked now. However, here’s one thing I just want to take issue with. You said let’s give kids of higher ability the opportunity to study computer science and that’s fine, but it isn't just children of higher ability. Some of the most powerful ideas of our time are ideas taken from computer science and taken from the idea of programming and the idea of modelling and it isn't an exaggeration to say that maybe we wouldn’t be in the economic mess that we are now in if people had a better understanding of what it means to make a mathematical model, what it means to write a computer programme - not that they become computer programmers and work for your excellent company, David, but that they understand what it means to have a programme written and what it means when you use a programme what lies behind it. So if you just strip out the word higher ability and say students, I would be much happier.
A: David Braben:
To be honest…..well firstly I would like to apologise, that is essentially what I mean, is the ability to do computer science in the lower school would make a phenomenal difference because it would show, I mean ICT is essentially a functional teaching….when it is supporting subjects across the board I think it is fine, when it becomes a subject in its own right, as you are saying, it can be very, very dull for almost all students. If there were a separate computer science at GCSE, I think that would be fantastic. You are absolutely right, as well, on the other point which is its all STEM subjects, what are commonly and collectively called STEM subjects that are suffering, i.e. science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The reason I pulled out computer science is that’s the one I have got actual figures for from e-skills, those figures, by the way, came from e-skills and the council of professors and heads of computer science. So these are real figures and they’re a shocking drop, but what’s important is the drop was a sharp one, it wasn’t a gradual one, it was a sharp one, just as the kids who had done GCSE at ICT were coming out, so I think there is a very high correlation. There is no certainty that it’s due to ICT, but there is a very high set of evidence. I know figures from other universities which are actually much more dramatic, but unfortunately I can't share those because I don’t have permission to do so. But I think the point here is, yes, I would echo your point. So many of the things that I learnt in my day are things you could do with computer science, you know things that your kid was talking about with Nintendogs, I think that is fantastic and in fact my very first game [Elite]….all sorts of people were forecasting profit ratios and things like that, which I thought wow that’s really complex, but it’s great that people are doing that, they are putting that much level of effort in, just to make their game play experience better and I think schools can embrace that with both hands, and the more I see it….some schools do, so please don’t take this as a criticism across the board, but it is just that ICT has a very, very low expectation of the children.
Q: Mike Cameron: Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.
David I think you would probably be surprised that I also agree with everything you said apart from the characterisation of why the problem starts with ICT. About 10 years ago I was a Head of ICT in a school with a lower sixth of around 200 students, with 8 students in the computer studies group. The following year with the introduction of the ICT GCE, we had 120. Now that wasn’t just because I’m a charismatic and you know excellent teacher, it was because those students were in that bubble that suddenly the school had a large investment in technology and availability of the technology, and they were a group who had gone through the lower school without having been able to access it and therefore they didn’t have the skills, the basic ICT skills that we had. Now the problem that created was that to go from 8 students to 120, from one teacher to four or five teachers, it wasn’t about bringing in skilled computing or ICT teachers, it was bringing in anyone who knew which way up the keyboard went, and therefore the rich content that there is in the ICT GCE in particular, wasn’t taught in a way that was actually beneficial or exciting for the students and that’s why you have got this follow through into no computer study students going through A-level and you have got now a very low number of computer study students going into universities. And the other thing I just want to add there is one of the problems here is that you are saying essentially that what the universities are teaching isn't right for you, the universities say to me what the schools are teaching at A-level isn't right for the universities and the A-level teachers are saying well what they are learning in the lower school at GCSE and Key Stage 3 isn't right for the A-level studies, so someone has got it wrong in all those places, and that’s the issue that has to be tackled.
A: David Braben:
Just to answer that, I think on your last point, I think all of them flow from each other. This is my point, the reason to advocate something like reintroduction of what was called computer science, it can still be called ICT and yes ICT was introduced for the best possible motives to make sure you catch the kids who don’t have coverage of it at home or whatever, but I think there are better ways to do that. But also if we can try and encourage the range, the curriculum within ICT to be a lot more compelling, that will then ripple through, it will make it easier at A-level, it will make it easier at tertiary level, it will make it easier for us to get the decent graduates, because this is something that’s going to affect Britain very, very badly in relation to the rest of the world because this is not a problem that is in the rest of the world.
