Somerset Local Authority education advisor Ian GoverGover says the Department of Education (DfE) has waited too long before consulting nationally on the contents of the new ICT curriculum, with September 2014 - the launch date for the new curriculum - fast approaching.
Meanwhile, as teachers and students continue to wait to this national consultation to take place, the quality of ICT teaching continues to decline, says Gover.
The current ICT curriculum in schools is being overhauled by the government to make it more relevant to students.
The Department for Education asked the British Computer Society (BCS) and the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) to put forward a first draft of the new curriculum, with the help of other stakeholders. This draft of the curriculum is now completed and is in the hands of the DFE.
The BCS and RAEng did consult with teachers and a select number of other skills groups when creating the draft, but Gover was critical of the fact that most of this consultation occurred in private members forums, chiefly the Computing at School (CAS) forum.
"The difficulty was teachers had to find this forum before they could contribute their views," says Gover.
Gover says he had been monitoring developments on the CAS forums closely to feedback developments to subject leaders in Somerset schools.
"It's only really people like me who have the time to find these forums who will be contributing to the discussion," he adds.
Gover also says that the decision by the BCS and RAEng to hold the initial consultation for just one week before creating a draft document may have also hampered the opportunities for true reform.
"You can't do a draft document in a couple of weeks. This process has been far too quick. Were the BCS the right agency [for the DFE to give this job to? That is the question. There is not enough knowledge coming into the process from schools."
"Other education bodies need to be more heavily involved and why are students not being more involved?" he asks.
Gover argues the consultation should have taken place back when the Royal Society first published its report on the poor state of ICT education in schools back in January 2012.
He says currently schools are now caught up in an uncomfortable transition phase, where ICT teachers do not know what they should be teaching students and they feel undervalued as they aware they are still teaching a curriculum that has been 'dissapplied' and labelled as "boring" by education minister, Michael Gove.
"Schools have ‘played' with the curriculum, changing things here and there, experimented with programming and coding mobile phone apps, thought about setting up GCSE computing courses, but without conviction as they were not sure what would come out of the review - the work might all be wasted," says Gover.
"A lot of other schools have not changed anything because they lack the trained teachers. The teachers also feel undervalued and undermined, the hard work rubbished by the 'boring' accusation.
"To move an object you need use force. The momentum for change has gone no matter what the new ICT programme of study looks like. Momentum is inextricably linked to a well-resourced and thought through process."
According to Gover, not only does the ICT curriculum need to be reformed in schools, but at GCSE level, the subject needs to be given "EBacc status".
The new English Baccalaureate Certificates (EBaccs) system has been hyped as the modern day O-levels, and will replace GCSEs in core subjects, first English and maths and then sciences and modern foreign languages.
The first EBaccs will be sat in 2017 and are expected to be more challenging and a better assessment of pupil's abilities than GCSEs.
At the moment it appears that the subject of computer science, along with the likes of music, drama and religious education, will still continue as a GCSE, a system that has been heavily criticised by Gove.
Gover joins many other IT education experts in the campaign to make computer science GCSE an EBacc in order to build respect for the subject among students and teachers.
There has been rumours this week in the CAS private members forums that Gove may relent to this campaign at the BETT learning technology event next week.
V3 was speaking to Gover as part of its Make IT Better campaign, which is calling on the DfE to give the ICT curriculum reform process transparency and to include the views of more teachers, education advisers and IT professionals from the start.
V3 has become increasingly concerned that current measures being taken to overhaul the IT curriculum and GCSE syllabus will not lead to young people being taught the technology skills needed by the IT industry.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Rosalie Marshall
Quelle/Source: V3.co.uk, 23.01.2013
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
