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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: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 23 2016, @12:38PM
Well, I'm not a journalist. Boys and girls are different, but what exactly is it about computer science in particular that differentially appeals to the genders, as opposed to, say, physics, that I was curious about. Not curious in a gender studies kind of curious, or a care at all what the answer is kind of curious, but idly curious. As for asking stupid questions, I can't stop because I am stupid. Stupid is as stupid does, you know.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @12:53PM
CS is not very social.
What I don't understand is why no one asks them. This article is asking us. All we can do is just guess. Why does no one ever ask the people who go into CS why they choose CS over other areas and then ask the other areas why they chose those areas over others. No one does that!
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday December 23 2016, @09:50PM
AC above: CS is not very social.
And that's about all you want to know. Other reasons are in the noise. Girls are genetically programmed to want babies, raise kids, have a family. These are social activities, where interaction with other humans is everything. Boys are genetically programmed to protect the family, obtain resources - these activities are largely nature-facing; no matter how nicely you dress, this will not stop the hurricane and will not hunt the deer. Men are predominantly dealing with nature, women work with humans. Why then to act surprised when we observe that men are better at working with machines, and women are better at psychology of humans? Women are writing excellent crime stories, for example. Some of the deductions of Miss Marple are simply beyond me - I do not deal with feelings, I deal with facts. Women are the other way around. Why should we torture girls by insisting that they must study dry and tasteless advanced math? Why should we torture boys by demanding that they tell us what thoughts might have ran in the head of a protagonist in a fiction book? (I have no idea and I can't care less about the latter, I'm not his head doctor.)