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Rebooting IT and computing teaching


Computing and IT may be among the most challenging subjects to teach given that technological change tends to outstrip curriculum content. But new opportunities for employer engagement are energising teaching and learning. Alan Thomson reports


Most of us are broadly familiar with Moore’s Law which says, more or less, that the processing power of computers doubles every 18 months or so. This observation by Gordon Moore, co-founder of


Intel Corporation, is all the more remarkable when one considers that he made it in 1965: long before the advent of the internet, virtual reality, mobile technology and the myriad apps, programmes and hardware solutions that have accelerated the rate of technological progress in the intervening 53 years. So, given such exponential advancement, how


do we go about teaching anything meaningful to IT and computing students that will still be relevant, let alone cutting-edge, by the time they enter the workplace? The speed of change also means a need to continually upskill and reskill older employees. Paul McKean, head of further education and


skills at Jisc, the digital infrastructure and services organisation, says: “If you have a qualification that’s two or three years old, and was probably written years before that, then how relevant is that qualification in an area like computing and IT? “My understanding is that a project-based


approach is one way round that. Learning needs to be broader than qualifications, and richer.” Judith Larsen, a tutor in networking and digital


security at Bedford College, agrees. “There’s not a lot we can do about a curriculum


that is almost out of date before we start teaching it,” says Larsen, who won the Tes FE Teacher of the Year Award in 2017. “But we can add stuff to it that is more up-to-date.


This teaches students the importance of continuing professional development which is, perhaps, more important than the core knowledge.” Larsen, who reckons she still clocks up more than


100 hours of CPD annually, is an expert instructor for the CISCO Instructor Excellence Award programme, and she believes that employer links and work experience are key for student development. “We need far more students leaving training


providers work-ready. Too many students often lack work experience,” she says. “We also need short,


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sharp courses of the sort run by CISCO and Microsoft for industry professionals.” Employer involvement in education and training


is central to the UK’s Digital Strategy, which calls for a Digital Skills Partnership between employers, providers and other bodies to help people access digitally-focused jobs. Meanwhile, the Post-16 Skills plan, supported by


the UK’s Industrial Strategy, proposes 15 technical education routes, including digital. Employers have had a major role in designing the standards for each route, and provider-based courses must include meaningful periods of work placement. This focus on digital skills appears timely as


research by The Tech Partnership, a digital skills body that works closely with employers, indicates that the UK currently needs just under 140,000 new entrants each year to fill digital specialist roles. It also found that 52 per cent of companies in the tech industry have dificulties in filling vacancies.


CHALLENGING FOR THE EDUCATION SECTOR Craig Hurring, communications and marketing director of The Tech Partnership, says: “Given the rate of change in technology, it is very challenging for the education sector to keep its industry knowledge up to speed. “Increasingly, employers are interested in


hiring people who can demonstrate the skills and professional behaviours – problem solving, critical thinking, logic, teamwork and client-facing skills – rather than those experienced in a given computer programming language, for example. “But there are instances where computer science is


still very much taught as an academic discipline. A lot more needs to be done to make these programmes more appealing and work-ready for students.” Employer-provider partnerships also hold the key


to another challenge facing IT and computing: that of recruiting enough highly qualified teachers


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