ICT is Boring!

Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, has announced a radical overhaul of the ICT curriculum, and not before time. The current, government written curriculum is out-of-date and very boring as he rightly says (I'm going to have to sit down, having just agreed with the man!). Gove wants children in schools to learn coding and being able to design apps.

This is great, but not all children will find these new activities interesting either, and even less will find them of any use outside the classroom. Whereas the stuff Gove wants to eradicate actually will be of use to most: using MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Also, staff may actually struggle to teach the new topics due to lack of knowledge and confidence with the software/language of coding. I regard myself as being fairly ICT savvy but have struggled with Google's App Inventor, which presumably would be one of the things on the new curriculum, or something similar at least. The same with game design and coding - even "simple" html is quite tough.

There is also the cost of purchasing the new software, which will run into thousands, plus the money required to train staff to enable them to teach the stuff. Where's the money going to come from, as we keep being told that there is none? Those who have the expertise to the level required will, or perhaps should be earning more money in the private sector.

How many jobs nowadays invent apps and games? Ok, more than there used to be, but not that many.

How many jobs nowadays use MS Word, Excel and Powerpint? Loads! Especially Excel for accounts and Word for writing a CV in order to get a job in the first place. Powerpoint is perhaps not as useful as it once was, but most managerial positions would require some knowledge of it.

I think that there needs to be a shake-up, no doubt about it, but there needs to be a mix of the apps/games and MS Office (schools can't afford Mac, I'm afraid). Those who are bored with the current system will be those who have an interest in ICT in the first place and will be on the computer for hours at home and therefore know all about MS Office. There are plenty of kids who aren't as good as that and need to be taught how to use the software. Some can't even send an email with an attachment in my view, although they are brilliant on Facebook. Most jobs I know don't require a thorough knowledge of Facebook but probably require you to send an email.

This announcement has substance, but still smacks of "give me your votes" to me.