[Jeremy Scott]

28/11/2011 at 9:25 am

Here’s the link in case you didn’t catch it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9649000/9649670.stm

 

Whilst it was good to get the coverage (even if it focussed on England), I was a little disappointed by the misapplication of that old analogy of the car.

 

As John Humphries noted, it’s open to the obvious “I need to know how to drive a car but don’t need to know how it works” which is, of course, missing the point. Everyone uses the products of subjects such Physics, Chemistry & Biology, which is why we see the need to deliver them in schools. Computer Science is the new(?!) core science, whose products we all use – that’s exactly why we need to be teaching it in schools and producing more than simply a computer-literate population (which is nonetheless important). If we don’t, then there are lots of other countries out – China, India, Brazil to name just a few – that will happily fill the gap we’re leaving.

 

That’s before we even begin to talk about the transferable skills that computational thinking brings…

 

Jeremy

[Darren Brown]

28/11/2011 at 11:42 am

It is great CS is getting coverage – there is also an article on the BBC news web site front page.  I am highlighting all of these points to my head and link at authority level but Highland still seems to be cutting Computing.  It is now gone from so many of our schools I do wonder how it could be brought back?  We have outcomes to teach but they are being ignored, it may take government level intervention.

 

3 large schools in this area don’t have Computing at all.  They do have some pupils going on to Computer Science but Higher Maths is all that is required so the heads tell me there is no need for Computing.