Director warns over IT uptake by GCSE students
THE DIRECTOR of an institute which campaigns for progress in society through technology has said new figures showing a stagnation in the increase of GCSE students taking computer science is “deeply worrying”.
Statistics released by Ofqual have shown a major reduction in the growth of students opting to take the course in 2017 compared with last year.
There was a “very modest” increase in students registered for GCSE computer science to a total of 67,800 Year 11 students compared to 61,220 Year 11 students in 2016.
Bill Mitchell, director of education at BCS, a Chartered Institute for IT, said: “This is deeply worrying. Computer science was only introduced three years ago and is still a new subject for schools.
“The number of students taking GCSE computer science should be growing very rapidly as schools improve their offering to students and students realise the relevance of the subject for whatever they might be doing in the future.
“Although only one data point, this stagnation in the increase of entries spells trouble for one of the most important subjects for the nation and signals we need to provide extra support for schools.”
BCS believes that as many as 70 per cent of secondary school computer science teachers could be lacking a relevant background to teach at GCSE level.
This puts significant pressure on staff as they struggle to get to grips with the extensive subject knowledge and skills needed to teach the subject well, the institute claims.
The institute said it expected that 90 per cent of all future jobs will require digital skills and it is estimated that the UK will need more than 1.2m new digitally skilled people by 2022.
The Department for Education stressed the number of pupils taking computer science GCSE has more than doubled from 33,414 to 69,350 students. A spokesman said the Government wants to “raise standards of achievement and participation” in science and technology studies, which will be aided by the new computer science GCSE.