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A revolution is under way in the teaching of computer science in schools in England - but it risks leaving girls and pupils from poorer backgrounds and ethnic minorities behind. That's the conclusion of academics who've studied data about the move from ICT as a national curriculum subject to computer science.
Four years ago, amid general disquiet that ICT was teaching children little more than how Microsoft Office worked, the government took the subject off the national curriculum. The idea was that instead schools should move to offering more rigorous courses in computer science - children would learn to code rather than how to do PowerPoint.
But academics at Roehampton University, who compile an annual study of computing education, have some worrying news. First, just 28% of schools entered pupils for the GCSE in computing in 2015. At A-level, only 24% entered pupils for the qualification.
Then there's the evidence that girls just aren't being persuaded to take an interest - 16% of GCSE computing entrants in 2015 were female and the figure for the A-level was just 8.5% . The qualification is relatively new and more schools - and more girls, took it in 2016 - but female participation was still only 20% for the GCSE and 10% for the A-level.
Why is it girls are not attracted to computer science? Is it some deeply embedded gender bias, or something else?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DutchUncle on Friday December 23 2016, @04:15AM
I was in engineering school (RPI) with a 10:1 ratio, so there weren't many women in the whole school. They were, however, represented in the nascent Computer Science department. When I went to graduate school at Rutgers, and worked as a teaching assistant, there were plenty of women undergrads *and* grad students (and some returning students as well) - less than half, perhaps about a third.
Maybe the problem with STEM fields is that people (both men and women) became aware of how unstable engineering jobs are, and how often there are layoffs and product cuts.