Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Behind the screen

This weeks Sunday afternoon tidying up unearthed a clipping from The Times which I had set aside to form the basis for a blog post & then forgotten about.

This month should have seen the start of a pilot programme to teach schoolchildren how to program computers. Called Behind the Screen, supported by companies such as IBM, Google & Cisco (no mention of Microsoft in this report). From a modest start in twenty schools it will – ‘ultimately’ - develop GCSE & A level subjects.

It is not clear how long this scheme has been in the hatching – it is odd to start part way into the school year like this. David Willets made the announcement at the British Science Festival in Bradford on 15 September, just a month after the Edinburgh TV Festival at which Eric Schmidt had criticised the lack of any such teaching in this country. If this is really a direct response to that criticism then it seems dangerously rushed.

It is very odd that children have been learning about genes & DNA at school – Watson & Crick made their discovery in 1953 – but not higher-level programming which was being established at much the same time.

It was hard work finding the official details of the Behind the Scenes project on the web – until Thinq_ led me to e-skills UK after I had given up on the website for Business, Innovation & Skills (Willetts’ own department).

I have downloaded the details to read at home when the library is closed by industrial action tomorrow.

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