UK Computer Science ... starting over?

This week the British Computer Society (BCS) writing from Roehampton University in South West London came very close to admitting that the introduction of Computer Science into English schools at GCSE and A level has been a bit of a disaster, cock up even.

A few years ago I was blogging for ComputerWorldUK and was one of the fiercest critics of the subject then called ICT and its apologist BECTA a government quango which effectively oversaw the digital revolution in schools at that time.

Long story short, BECTA was abolished, ICT given the chop ( last exams this year 2018 I believe) and Computing re-introduced ostensibly to re-create our pre-eminence in computing following a serious mocking of the current state of the nation by the then head of Google no less.

So enthused was I that I came out of teacher-retirement to teach the new GCSE and A levels in Computer Science. Maybe though I missed some early warning signs. At a educational show I was browsing a stall where the BCS was showcasing a child friendly drag and drop programming interface called Scratch. They ( the stall holders) were an odd bunch, very male very unfriendly and immune to dialogue ( ok criticism)  or interest from a veteran MIndStorms block code user.

In other words very much what you might expect from a certain CompSci stereotype.

Anyway, what transpired was eye-opening

Firstly, CompSci at GCSE and A level is hard. I have taught Chemistry, Physics, Biology, ICT and Computing (c1998) at A level, GCSE and O level during my 38 years in the business. I and my students over the years would vote for Chemistry as the hardest; Physics as impossible without good maths; Biology “easiest but lots of it”; ICT as deeply trivial but useful in the workplace ( MS Office era) and 1990s Computing really quite easy. It’s a long list but it has been a long time albeit punctuated by 10yr back in industry post 2000.

But CompSci 2016--  trumps the lot, and the reason that CompSci is so hard?  … the level of abstraction is very high.

This is a problem. Abstraction is expected to be part of the skill set of A level students but in all honesty some subjects have very little ( Biology and Geography spring to mind). CompSci has a lot. Consequently, only those students who can do this will pass in the subject let alone thrive.
Boys and girls are equally represented with regard to the ability to move from concrete to abstract work. So, from a subset of the school population ( the abstracters) will come the successful CompSci kids.

Boys though are over-represented in their love of computer hardware, computer games, and nefarious activities thus labelling the subject of CompSci as ‘male’. Many of the less successful CompSci students take the subject because of these drivers.

Now we have a double whammy, nay a treble whammy. A hard, ‘boys’ subject suitable for only those few with the best abstract handling abilities that does not deliver the League Table’s best grades. The BCS/Roehampton report here says just that in its very good summary paragraphs at beginning of the report. Worth a read.

Finally another whammy, this time it’s fatal.  Poor uptake of the subject especially at A level means that it is too expensive to keep on a schools portfolio of offerings. Few schools can continue to subsidise a subject in the time of budget squeeze.

What’s to be done? Do we really want computer and programming skills in our upcoming generations?

Easy, drop Computer Science from GCSE and GCE. It belongs with the technical qualifications.
With technical qualifications the abstract can be balanced with meaningful applied skills, (something not achievable in traditional schools). More girls will be attracted just for the reason that an employable skill is an employable skill and they are as pragmatic as boys. Place this subject in large institutions ( 1000+) so that class sizes can be viable.

In conclusion, the re-introduction of Computing to schools has been botched  by geeks who thought everyone was like them. By the way developing ‘Scratch’ was not a solution to accessing programming. It was a distracting dead end.