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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: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @06:41AM
> If we find some thing, some area, some interest, in which boys excel over girls, then we must dissuade boys from pursuing that interest?
Your constant victimhood mentality is so damn tiring.
You are not a special snowflake. Just because everybody's catered to you for most of your life doesn't mean you deserved it.
When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Put on your big boy pants and stop whinging.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:04AM
And just because someone feels oppressed doesn't mean they actually are. It seems many people are suffering from the illusion of mass inequality, or at the very least, are unable to prove that this mass inequality actually exists with hard, objective science.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 23 2016, @07:07AM
You sound like the whiner here. Because I am more self assured than you are, you attribute that to some kind of "privilege". You, the brain damaged child, point at the school's star athletes, and complain that they can do things that you can't. You, the genetically deformed, complain that the children who are straight, tall, and strong are "privileged". Your warped mind cannot accept that your are a second place, second class nobody. You ARE the special snowflake here, and you expect me to conform to your expectations and limitations.
Stop sniveling.
I don't wear "big boy pants". That's what children move up to as they leave toddler hood behind. I suggest that you take off your "big boy pants", and put on a pair of jeans, and a pair of boots. Get your ass out the door, and toughen yourself up a little.
Victimhood. You whine and snivel about being victimized, and when I reasonably point out that it's not me who victimizes you, you scream about "privilege".
Here's some good advice for a whiner like you: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OQ2jEimNmto/hqdefault.jpg [ytimg.com]
After that, you can brush up on your manual - http://thedeclination.com/common-sjw-phrases-translated-to-english/ [thedeclination.com]
Then, you can skip all the intermediate steps, and just get to calling me a racist, mysogenist, and whatever else you care to call me.
And - at the end of the day - no one pays you any mind. So, go back and have another good cry as you fall asleep, you miserable shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @03:37PM
> Because I am more self assured than you are,
That must be why you pulled a trump and went all thin-skinned attack everything you can possibly think of in response to an AC.
Yeah, you are bigly self-assured!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @05:33PM
Classic!
You literally replied in the most insecure possible way -- "I'm not a whiner, you're a whiner!"
Are you nine years old?
So entertaining! You win the prize for this month's most unintentionally revealing post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:19PM
Your warped mind cannot accept that your are a second place, second class nobody. You ARE the special snowflake here
Evidently Runaway just got trolled pretty good. He couldn't handle it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @09:10AM
...special snowflake...privilege...oppression...big boy pants...
You're triggering me with your micro-aggressions!