In some ways I’m rather encouraged by today’s announcement by the education secretary that he wants to see a greater emphasis on the teaching of computer science in the schools curriculum. But I think the suggestion that he seems to be making, or at least the media interpretation of it, that teaching someone how to use popular computer programs like office suites (his definition of ICT) is no longer worthwhile and what should be taught instead is how to program them (his definition of Computer Science) is an unproductive dichotomy. Let me explain.
Back in the mid to late 1980s, everything taught in schools around the topic of computing was computer science focused. It had to be. If you wanted to get any benefit from a BBC micro or Sinclair ZX81, you had to learn how to program it first – usually in one of the many weird and wonderful dialects of a programming language known as BASIC. I still have an attic full of Computing Today and Practical Electronics magazines which were crammed full of BASIC listings that you had to type into these machines to get them to play games or do more worthy calculations, such as working out how to obtain a non-standard electrical resistance from two resistors placed in parallel. The often buggy nature of these listings and the non-standard features that many BASIC dialects had helped you to gain a deeper understanding of how computer programming worked. I spent (probably far too many) happy hours as a teenager translating programs to work on my Sharp MZ80K and its own peculiar BASIC dialect.
My brother using our Sharp MZ80K, aged 15
At some point during the 1990s, what schools taught the majority of pupils changed from programming activities and the understanding of how computers worked to focus almost exclusively on the use of commercial packages, particularly office productivity suites. I still despair at what my daughters were taught in their ICT lessons. There was lots of stuff about how to use word processors, spreadsheets and small databases, with nothing at all about how these things were built in the first place.
The thing is, both aspects of computing are important. It’s a bit like cars. It’s true that most people simply need to know how to drive (use) them rather than how to build a car in the first place or even service one. But having an understanding of how they are built and serviced prevents you from being ripped off by the garage or from attempting things in your car that it wasn’t designed to do!
Similarly, it’s important that the use of common software applications is taught as today such knowledge has a direct impact on your prospects in the world of work. But perhaps having just a little understanding of the complexity involved in even the simplest forms of software engineering or computer programming should mean that there are fewer failed technology programmes in future. With knowledge that you are able to apply, you become harder to fleece as well as becoming better able to understand the art of the practical – as anything is possible with computer software given enough time and money. Despite all appearances to the uninitiated, computers are not magic – but that we can get them to do anything for us at all is the result of hard logic and clever algorithms. When software really works well, it’s also the result of disciplined engineering processes.
So my nagging concern with today’s announcement is not that computer science will be back on the curriculum – its more widespread return within our schools is long overdue. Instead, it is the false dichotomy being peddled that learning how to make a computer program that someone else has created do something useful for you is somehow boring or a second class pursuit. It isn’t.
Such skills are every bit as important today as understanding how to use shorthand and slide rules were for the engineers of my father’s generation.
AGREED. I wish we’d been taught something more useful than ICT. (In fact, I remember having lots of arguments with you and Mum about dropping it – I KNEW you didn’t really think it was a worthwhile GCSE
). Learning how to use software packages is important, but it is basic stuff, and since most kids in this country are now growing up with Word and Excel, they don’t need to be taught how to use them in all of their computer suite lessons. It’s a waste of everyone’s time, and from the consistently bored, uninspired attitude of our ICT teachers, they knew that too.