News
More support needed for IT skills crisis, says report
The Corporate IT Forum’s Education & Skills Commission has published the first of four reports on addressing the IT skills crisis facing the UK. The first report, ‘The Early Years’, focuses on the school years and finds an IT education and careers system seriously lacking. The report identifies causes for the skills shortage, from outsourcing policies, an ageing workforce, through to insufficient understanding of IT and what it enables in both the boardroom and on the shop floor. It makes 20 recommendations on education, careers guidance and the development of the new IT curriculum, including the need for input from a range of major employers who use IT to deliver products and services, rather than just those who are IT developers and vendors.
The recommendations also included: a requirement for schools to ring-fence money for careers guidance and the provision of face-to-face advice; STEM careers events for all year nine pupils; sufficient Government funding to enable every school to have a STEM or computer club; support for the bulk of the recommendations in the Royal Society Report on the ICT Curriculum, including the un-bundling of the curriculum into the three subject areas of digital literacy, information technology and computer science; and the use of a single examination board for information technology, as is proposed for english and maths.
Commission Chairman and Vice President, Global Enterprise Architecture at AIMIA, John Harris, said of the skills crisis: “Careers support and education for children and young people interested in pursuing a career in IT is in disarray…Without the right careers guidance and curriculum, there is a danger that in the short-term the situation will only get worse, with employers forced to recruit outside of the UK to fill the gap.”
He continued: “We have looked at the work underway in these areas but find that many of the current duties for schools and related initiatives are not funded properly, fail to address business needs or are not being executed in a way likely to make a fast enough impact.
“Unless immediate action is taken we will have whole swathes of the current generation of schoolchildren who are simply not IT literate enough to function in an increasingly digital world.”
uwww.corporateitforum.com EcoKids textile recycling project
The EcoKids Textile Recycling Project is a fundraising tool designed to raise children's awareness about recycling, while helping schools pay for projects or extracurricular activities that keep students safe and active within the community.
The project is operated via
www.ecokidsproject.co.uk, where schools and other organisations can sign up to recycle their textiles.
Once you’ve registered, a representative from EcoKids will be in touch to discuss the details of the program and provide the necessary materials, such as collection bags and promotional pamphlets. The program accepts several different forms of textiles, including high-quality clothing, soft toys, shoes, handbags, linens, portable electronics, costume jewelry and bric-a- brac.
Children are asked to bring these items from home to put into collection bags that will eventually be sent to children in Africa, Ukraine, Poland and Latvia. Items that aren't of sufficient quality are recycled into industrial cloths. On the collection date, the program sends an EcoKids van to collect the items. Schools receive £600.00 for each tonne of textiles. The project has helped schools and charities across the United Kingdom raise over £380,000 since starting in 2010, and as a result of their success, EcoKids has begun sponsoring football clubs like the Milton Boys Club, riding schools such as Throstle Nest RDA, and helping supporters to raise funds for charities such as CLIC Sargent.
uFor more information about the EcoKids project, or to have your school register to raise funds through the scheme, visit
www.ecokidsproject.co.uk
Ecokids helping to raise funds with a local school football club
Generation Y: the (modern) world of personal finance
A recent study by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI) revealed only 30% of 16-25 year olds contribute to a pension. 40% of these do not know what type of pension they pay into and 80% would be interested in learning more about personal finance.
To discuss the results of the report, Cass Business School welcomed both the CSFI and the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments. They held a debate which centred around two key issues: who is responsible for teaching young people about personal finance and what will the financial landscape of the future look like? Jeannette Lichner, author of #yourmoney, explained that she wrote her book due to the lack of information available to young people on personal finance: “I believe that many people share responsibility for helping young adults be money aware. There are many people who impact each individual’s approach to earning, spending and saving money – parents, friends, colleagues, etc. “Schools have the benefit of a captive audience who are there to learn, and that is where we can have the most impact.”
This sparked lively debate across a range of topics: who should provide financial education – teachers or parents? What role does the press play in apportioning blame for the current lack of education/need for education? Are payday lenders providing a useful service or exploiting the vulnerable?
If you have a view on financial education for young people in schools, then get in touch and share it with us. Contact us via email at
education@datateam.co.uk or on Twitter via @EdTodayMag.
February 2013
www.education-today.co.uk 5
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