A fall in the growth of students opting to enter for GCSE computer science in 2017, compared with 2016, could be bad for the UK in general and cyber-security in particular, it is claimed.
Stats from the regulator Ofqual showed a small rise in students registered for GCSE Computer Science to a total of 67,800 year 11 students compared to 61,220 year 11 students in 2016. Science, and languages such as German (down to 42,050) and French (down to 121,800) have shown percentage decreases, despite an overall rise to more than five million; 5.098m.
Bill Mitchell, Director of Education at the BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT and former British Computer Society, said: “This is deeply worrying. Computer Science was only introduced three years ago and is still a new subject for schools. The number of students taking GCSE Computer Science should be growing very rapidly as schools improve their offering to students and students realise the relevance of the subject for whatever they might be doing in the future.
“Although only one data point, this stagnation in the increase of entries spells trouble for one of the most important subjects for the nation and signals we need to provide extra support for schools.”
It’s not all bad news; numbers of students taking A level computer studies has gone up, from 5750 to 7,700; although well behind numbers one and two mathematics (88,850) and English (74,350).
Comment
Debbie Tunstall, Head of Education Programmes, Cyber Security Challenge UK said: “The latest figures from Ofqual are somewhat disappointing, while perhaps not totally surprising. We are still facing a battle in the wider technology industry around the understanding of potential opportunity in this field. If this isn’t addressed then it will only further expand the already critical skills gap.
“Computing, cyber security and other ICT subjects are all relatively new areas of study and pathways through from early education to successful career are still being shaped. Because of this, there is still a severe lack of understanding of careers in the area by parents and teachers, who are the main influencers on young people when they consider careers during education. Further to this, we see a lack of qualified teachers in the area, exacerbated by rapid development in technology; many of those who qualified as ICT teachers will not have learnt coding, cyber security etc themselves, which are critical to the next generation of technology specialists.
“The presentation of these subjects need to be made more relevant at school. For example, we know that girls tend to be more interested in behavioural and social sciences; so key elements of computing, such as social engineering and cyber criminology should be highlighted, as well as coding and analysis jobs. This may, in part, be why there was a higher uptake of the ICT GSCE as opposed to the computer qualification, which is commonly associated with the sub-topics that are more attractive to males.
“The bottom line is that we (government, parents, society) need to help teachers to inspire and educate how computer science can drive an amazing career. However, it is equally valid to be able to find a great career in the field from unorthodox subject choices too – after all, many people do not continue to study the subjects they take at school, college, or even university once they get into the working world.”
