Why I Despair for Computer Literacy in the UK
In today’s world, knowing how to program or use computers properly is essential. Traditional jobs are being lost to machines, with previously ‘safe’ careers like taxi and lorry driver being gradually relegated to history. Startups and tech companies are taking over the world, with developers being needed for apps and websites more than ever. And with things like Kickstarter and the app store catching on like they have, indie game development has now become a viable career for a ton more people.
It’s a world full of opportunity for those who know how to exploit it.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to have come to the attention of the people running the UK’s IT curriculum. Because as someone who went through it a few years ago, dear God does it suck.
Seriously. Every single aspect of the UK’s attempts at teaching IT is a horrible failure that does a terrible job of getting kids used to computers. Every aspect, from school to university.
For example what do should be taught in IT classes?
Come on, take a guess. Programming? Basic web development? How to make our own games?
Yeah, I’d have thought so too. I’d have thought they’d be trying to teach kids to become the next generation of developers. The people who’ll be making their own sites and apps and making full uses of the dozens of resources and opportunities out there.
But no. Instead, we got what was basically ‘Microsoft Office The Class’. Literally. Just Microsoft Office programs and how to use them in the most basic sense possible.
For example, how old were you when you learnt to use Microsoft Word?
Maybe 10? 12? Yeah, I’d say so. It’s not a very difficult program to use for the most part, and the vast majority of people will learn everything they’ll use on a regular basis in a matter of minutes. Heck, the most ‘complicated’ thing the average person might use is mail merge, and even that’s a rather simple feature to set up. It has no place in a classroom aimed at kids above the age of 10.
Yet in British schools? We’re seeing kids taught to use mail merge in senior school. That’s like telling a teenager how to switch on a PC or training a ‘programmer’ how to use Google.
And it’s far from the only example of this insanity. Indeed, in my whole experience with IT in senior school, I learnt how to use:
- Microsoft Word
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Publisher
- And Microsoft PowerPoint.
That’s it. Aside from a few random facts that no one should be learning past the age of 6 (like maybe how many bytes in a megabyte), the whole class was basically an advertisement for Microsoft’s products.
What’s more, it didn’t even teach us how to use the ‘right’ products about 50% of the time. I mean, what kind of program do you think kids should be taught how to create web pages in? A text editor like Notepad? A WYSIWYG editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver?
I’d have thought so. Preferably the former given how the latter generates godawful code, but hey, at least something like Dreamweaver is meant for building websites in.
Instead, I saw kids taught how to ‘create’ pages in… Microsoft Publisher. No, I’m not joking. They tried to teach kids how to write web pages in a tool meant for designing print brochures. As if any serious, right minded person would ever use something so abhorrent for creating a website.
It’s a total train wreck, and means that anyone who doesn’t study IT at sixth form or above is leaving schools without even the most basic of computer skills. You might as give them a bloody typewriter and skip the computer aspect altogether. Cause they aren’t going within fifty miles of a tech company with the ‘skillset’ you gave them.
But hey, don’t think things get any better at sixth form college! Oh no, because if your sixth form college wasn’t particularly good, your IT education there would barely be any better than at school.
Trust me, I know. I did IT in sixth form too, and the entire extent of what I was ‘taught’ there was pretty much entirely:
- How to use Microsoft Access
- How to use Microsoft Front Page
- Some random facts no one really cares about
Again, that’s pretty much it. Despite the fact that you know, you’re teaching adults this stuff. As in, you’re teaching 17–18 years old how to design websites in Microsoft FrontPage. It’s unbelievable isn’t it?
So yeah, even a student with an A Level in IT probably couldn’t program their way out of a paper bag. Pretty sad isn’t it?
Fortunately, it does seem to get a tad better in college. After all, you actually learn how to program in Java or .NET there! So for once in your sorry life, you’ll actually have to do some programming to get your IT degree.
Which must be a real shock for anyone who went straight from sixth form college to university without doing something extra learning on the side. I mean, you’re telling them they need to know more than how to use Microsoft Office? Or that ‘coding’ involves writing code in a text editor?
It’s like telling a student learning to drive to go from the 20–30mph roads near their house to a 70mph motorway without anything in between. A sure fire way for things to end in a fiery disaster with life changing injuries.
But hey, that’s British IT for you! A bunch of pointless Microsoft Ads spliced against a bit of written work with no actual knowledge of how computers or programs actually work included in the bargain. It’s basically just setting up millions of people with no marketable computing skills at all, and kicking them off into a world where said skills are actually necessary to earn a decent living.
It needs to change, now. Before we have any more generations that are completely unable to code.
