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Channel: Education: Mortarboard blog | guardian.co.uk
Can the teaching unions be part of the solution?
A new research project aims to uncover what matters to teachers
What are unions for - and what should they be for? Are they industrial lobbying groups, existing to advance the interests of their members, or professional associations driven to improve the quality of the services they provide?
The two goals can combine of course, but there's often little acknowledgment of this.
Michael Gove has little hesitation in including the NUT among his "enemies of promise", while the teaching unions have been guilty of a little hyperbole themselves.
It's an echo of the angry debate in the US where Geoffrey Canada, of Harlem Children's Zone, has accused the unions of being a brake on reform.
A project being carried out by Loic Menzies, a former teacher who now runs a consultancy, aims to uncover some answers.
Menzies draws attention to the work of Harvard academic Susan Moore Johnson, who writes of "industrial unionism" and "reform unionism" in education.
The first kind assumes that relations between workers and management are at odds - it's a zero-sum game.
The second accepts that while union rules can protect teachers from arbitrary treatment, they can limit the freedom of school managements. This model allows both sides to collaborate on bespoke solutions to school problems.
She writes that there is "substantial evidence... in contrast to the notion that unions limit educational autonomy and professionalism, that teacher unions have led to many practices that not only permit but also promote local variety and reform."
Menzies's research project - commissioned by a social enterprise that is seeking to offer support services to teachers - is an attempt to identify what matters to teachers and therefore what should matter to Britain's teaching unions. On the basis of early findings, he writes: "We might expect the focus amongst teachers to be on 'reform' rather than stagnation. Should this be the case, unions will need to make sure their behaviour is in line with teachers' objectives by focusing on standards and quality as opposed to defensiveness."
It is a project that will be of some interest to the unions themselves. One of Menzies' early discoveries is that there appears to be a high degree of mobility among teachers: more than 40% of his initial respondents have swapped union.
Would you consider going to a private university?
Private universities can charge what they like ? but they have to keep their standards high to attract students. Does that make them a serious option?
The government last week abandoned plans to reform the university system that would have made it easier for private colleges to award university degrees to students.
As it stands, the University of Buckingham and BPP University College are the only fully-fledged private universities in the UK, though there are several other private degree-awarding bodies. The vast majority of British universities are public, funded in the past primarily by government grant, though higher tuition fees are intended to replace some state funding.
Private universities are not subject to the same government requirements as public universities, nor are they necessarily committed to widening access to students from poorer backgrounds.
But do private universities have a role to play in our education system?
Philosopher AC Grayling, who will be launching the New College of the Humanities (NCH) in September, certainly thinks so. NCH is a London-based, for-profit, undergraduate college that will charge its students £18,000 a year ? three times what the average state university charges. I interviewed Grayling for my student newspaper last summer, and he presented NCH as a response to the government's cuts to funding for arts subjects, emphasising the fact that NCH will offer bursaries to 20% of its students.
In the UK, we are accustomed to viewing higher education as a public service, not a private good. So the problem with charging £18,000 a year for a university education is this: if the teaching at private universities is of an equal standard to that of public universities, they're a blatant con. And if the teaching is superior, we are providing a better education for those who can afford it.
Since private universities tend to be smaller than their state counterparts, their students inevitably get more personal tuition. The University of Buckingham, with just 1,000 students, boasts on its website that it offers "Oxbridge-style tutorial groups" that are "often personalised and always exhilarating".
Its student: academic staff ratio is 8.9:1. Unsurprisingly, its students do well. In the Guardian University Guide, Buckingham's English faculty comes seventh out of 106 universities, while its economics department comes eighth out of 69.
Those in favour of private universities argue that they don't take anything away from the system that is already in place ? they simply provide more people with a chance to gain degrees. Grayling told me that since our economy is fed by people who studied humanities, providing a centre for elite learning will serve merely to make up for the cuts in humanities teaching in many other universities. Grayling also pointed out that since public universities already charge oversees students much more than locals, and postgraduate study is notoriously expensive, there is nothing exceptional about NCH's higher fees tariff.
It would be naive to deny that the university system in this country needs serious reassessment. But a society that treats education as a commodity overlooks the basic fact that everyone deserves an education, regardless of whether or not they can afford to pay extortionate fees.
A new generation of schools offers a cure for jobless youth
In east London, the best jobs aren't going to local people. A new school aims to solve that.
Youth unemployment, over a million now, is the most painful feature of the recession; a breach of the promise one generation makes to the next. But it's not new - unemployment among the young was rising even in the tail end of the boom years.
There's a deeper change going on here. The brutal truth is that in the 21st century, Britain has no jobs for young people without qualifications.
There's a real shortage of first jobs for young people with all levels of education. Only 6% of employers offer jobs to 16 year old school leavers and only around 10% offer jobs to 17 and 18-year-olds fresh from school or college, according to 2009 data held by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. Increasingly, the jobs which are on offer to young people are not particularly good ones ? they are more likely to be temporary or part-time, and they are less likely to receive training than older people.
But what about the future? Two of the most successful sectors of the economy - professional and scientific jobs, and IT - employ a below average proportion of young workers. Both of these sectors are significant in employment terms - employing around 1.9m and 1m people respectively. If we're going to get more young people into work, here's where the growth could come from.
Here's a puzzle: the employment rate in Hackney, east London, has been rising over the past three years to nearly 71%, which is above the national average. But Hackney's unemployment rate has barely been whittled away. Meanwhile, the percentage of the borough's population with degrees rose dramatically in the past decade, from 33% to 46%. (Nationally, the figure is 25%).
In other words, the jobs aren't going to local people. There's been an influx of graduates which has transformed Hackney but left untouched a layer of young people without a future.
Even after years of investment, thousands of teenagers across the country are leaving school without the basics. School league tables published by the government last week highlighted the fact that just under 60% of 16-year-olds achieved five A* to C grades at GCSE including English and maths, in last summer's exams.
Just 34% of those in care or on free school meals achieve this benchmark.
For those who fail to get these qualifications, the prospects are bleaker than ever.
How do we fix this? Improving school standards is part of the answer, but it's obvious that there are thousands of young people who fail to be switched on by a traditional academic education.
One solution can be found in a new generation of vocational schools, backed by firms such as BlackBerry and Toshiba, which will open across England from September. The first of these schools, the JCB academy, opened in Staffordshire in 2010.
The first in the capital will open in Hackney this autumn. And while the University Technical College scheme is the brainchild of the former Tory education secretary Lord Baker, the chairman of the Hackney project is a prominent figure on the left, Anthony Painter.
Education secretary Michael Gove has announced today that 13 more UTCs have been approved to open from September.
Hackney UTC is sponsored by Hackney community college, whose principal Ian Ashman sketched out to me how a "radical strategy of closing down schools" had transformed the borough's GCSE results. But he believes this will now have diminishing returns.
"The strategy of doing more of the same has been successful but is not going to carry on being successful," Ashman says.
"There are young people capable of being successful at 16, but who don't at the moment because they're not motivated by the academic programme."
The problem in Hackney is not necessarily one of a lack of jobs, but a mismatch of skills. On the doorstep of the new UTC is Tech City, the cluster of tech and digital companies that began at 'Silicon Roundabout'.
Health, and the way that technology is going to change healthcare is another source of potential growth. There are three hospitals in the vicinity; Barts, the Royal London, and Homerton.
Austerity means these workforces are unlikely to expand, but they will change shape as the way that health services are delivered changes - making greater use of remote diagnostics, for example.
But even in a bleak economic climate, employers say that they can't recruit young people with the necessary hi-tech skills.
Annie Blackmore, who will be headteacher of the Hackney UTC, says: "What the UTC is doing is sitting down with these employers and saying: 'what are your skills needs?'"
Partners including BT and Homerton hospital will help draw up specifications for the curriculum - and the the children's schoolwork will include employer-led projects. The school day will be based on the working day, all part of channelling young people into work.
But equipping them with skills for work doesn't mean that they should be pigeonholed, Blackmore says. After all, children will be 14 when they start.
Instead, they'll be encouraged to do the core curriculum - GCSEs in English, maths, science, a humanity and a language - alongside a vocational qualification in either health, or information and creative technology.
There will be a strong "bias towards" the use of technology in class, and students will be expected to blog on what they're doing in the curriculum.
That will be an essential preparation for the future.
"They're going to be working freelance," Ashman says. "The way in which they'll find work is through Linked In, Twitter."
The new school's immediate challenge is to find 100 pupils, to start in September - all of whom are currently at other schools.
The UTCs won't be selective. To start with, Blackmore is working with schools to identify students who might, as she puts it "benefit from a change of curriculum".
Though based in Hackney, its catchment area extends across a swath of east London. It is wide because its envisaged that the UTC won't recruit large numbers of students from any one school.
But how will the new school ensure that it isn't seen simply as a second choice - a second class education fit for someone else's children?
Blackmore says: "I don't want schools to think this is a programme for students they don't want, don't necessarily want to keep in their schools - the curriculum will be challenging." The aim is to rercuit children "who are capable of succeeding but are switched off by what's on offer."
Painter advocates a "hybrid and high-quality academic, technical, personal and work-linked curriculum" that should exist alongside the traditional academic route.
He says: "Student strengths are varied and so should the education system be: status and quality however must be universal."
The question, Painter says, is whether its children from Hackney who benefit from the new opportunities on their doorstep.
Exams make our hands sore, say students
A generation that grew up typing and texting is struggling to write essays in exam halls
Normal life can be resumed now that January exams are drawing to a close. But as budding scientists and mathematicians stroll carefree to their lectures, humanities students are left nursing a rather ugly legacy ? the writer's bump. Held aloft in pride and anguish, the bulbous callus caused by prolonged use of a pen is proof of exam exertion.
Essay-style exams have always been onerous, but for us, the MSN generation ? raised on a diet of vowel-free touch typing and smiley emoticons ? three hours of biro scratching is a serious challenge.
Here's the question: as laptops usurp pens in the lecture hall and library, are our phalanges becoming too feeble for handwritten assessments?
In the run-up to my undergraduate exams, I was advised by tutors to practice speedy handwriting. Some even claimed that candidates can't write as much these days as their counterparts did in previous years, though no data is available to prove this.
Could computer-based assessments solve the problem? Computers are already used in exams by many students who have learning difficulties or a disability.
A final-year politics student says he took easily to using a keyboard after being diagnosed with dyspraxia: "I haven't written an exam with a pen since year 9. I'm now at Cambridge where hundreds of students take exams on computers without any fuss."
Ofqual's former chief executive Isabel Nisbet says pen and paper tests are outdated, and argues that school pupils should be tested with the same tools they use to learn.
Edinburgh University has gone further, offering first- and second-year divinity students a choice between handwriting or typing in essay-style exams. Edinburgh copied the system used by US law schools, where students download security software that blocks certain applications from laptops, making them suitable for exam use. The university says that pilot studies showed "no demonstrable difference" in the scores of students who typed their answers as opposed to writing them.
In the end, only a tiny proportion of students ? around 1% ? opted to ditch their pencil case for a laptop. Perhaps the small uptake isn't that surprising. Exams are stressful enough without worrying about temperamental laptops. And having a biro to chew on might even help the thought process?
For the moment it seems that the pen and paper are here to stay, but examiners are aware of the strain written tests place upon students. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, English tutor at Oxford University, says: "Inevitably, anxiety is sometimes voiced that students are now so used to typing they can't cope with a three-hour handwritten exam."
He offers some reassurance to those of us whose pens move ponderously: "Precision is always likely to be valued more highly by examiners than aimless sprawl, but that might apply equally to answers that are generously long, or elegantly compact. Excellence comes in many different forms ? as does mediocrity, of course."
Well no more exams until May ? our writer's bumps should be gone by then.
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Secondary schools more reticent to become academies, figures show
Figures from the Department for Education reveal excitement for academy status may be on the wane.
The number of secondary schools applying to become academies is slowing down considerably, official figures show.
In April, 143 secondaries applied to become academies ? state-funded schools that are accountable to central government, rather than their local authority. In December, the number fell to just 38.
It's not surprising that in August there were only eight applications ? schools were closed for the summer holidays. But it is interesting that the number hasn't picked up much since then. In September, just 21 secondaries applied to become academies, while in October and November, 38 and 36 did respectively.
Could it be that the initial wave of enthusiasm for the coalition's drive for all schools to "convert" to academy status has subsided?
Michael Gove, the education secretary, rushed through The Academies Act 2010 in only three months so that all state schools could apply to become academies and be "free" to change their curriculum, their school day and the pay of their staff. Gove is convinced that this freedom will make them more responsive to parents and that this will raise standards.
But, as The Economist pointed out last year, there is little evidence to show that schools are making use of these freedoms.
If excitement has waned, the coalition has still achieved something remarkable ? 45% of England's secondaries are now academies and the bulk of these schools have converted since July 2010.
The Department for Education is still optimistic. A spokesman told the Guardian he was "relaxed about the conversion rate". "This is a genuinely permissive policy ? it is down to schools, not politicians, to judge whether gaining Academy powers will drive up standards for their pupils," he said. "Our long-term expectation is that Academies will be the norm in the school system."
Applications to become academies from primary schools tell a slightly different story. The number applying is slowly rising, but the proportion is far smaller than it is for secondaries. Just 3% of England's primaries are academies. In April, the number of primaries that applied to become academies hit a peak at 88. In November, there were 36 and in December 48.
John Fowler, policy manager at the Local Government Information Unit thinktank, says it will take "several generations" for all primaries to turn into academies, unless they are forced to do so through legislation.
Fowler, who has kept a close eye on the monthly applications data the Department for Education publishes, says England could end up with local authorities losing their considerable expertise in secondary education.
Since the 19th century, he says, English local authorities have taken a view of education that considers both the primary and secondary schools in their area. They may no longer be able to do this. But will it matter?
"We might look back in 20 years and say 'what a disaster the academies programme was', on the other hand, we might say 'the market rules supreme'," Fowler says.
Students: can you afford to be interns?
Internship is a good route to employment, we're told. But if employers won't pay interns, it's a route open only to affluent students
You know you're nearing the end of your degree when you get back to university after the Christmas break and your friends don't ask how your holidays were, but how your internship went.
Anyone who is serious about getting employed after they graduate won't think twice about forgoing four weeks of sleep for four weeks of work experience. After all, the world of a graduate is a very scary place. Jobs are scarce and if you haven't gained work experience during your holidays, securing one will be even harder.
There's no shying away from the fact that doing internships makes you more employable. A recent survey shows that a third of interns go on to attain some form of paid employment with the company they worked for.
But the problem is that a huge number of internships are unpaid. We've all heard the argument that internships are more beneficial for the intern than the company, and I don't doubt that's true. But that doesn't mean students should be expected to work for free.
For one thing, there's a big difference between being given the opportunity to shadow someone at work and working as an intern.
Shadowing someone at work is what 16-year-old schoolchildren do when they've finished their GCSEs and their teachers want a holiday. It involves wearing semi-smart clothes, taking a train on your own, and filing paperwork. You're asked to do things that don't necessarily need doing but will keep you busy until 5 o'clock, and you get a crash course in office politics.
Interning, on the other hand, involves waking up early, commuting in the rush hour, and spending an eight-hour day doing genuinely useful jobs that companies would have to find someone else to do if you weren't there. In fact, many companies have a set "intern job" that rotates every month or so.
But can you afford to be an intern? Work experience is fast becoming an opportunity only for those solvent enough not to worry about their expenses.
Pretty much every placement that's worth anything is based in London in the media world anyway. If you don't live there, unless you can sleep on a friend's couch, you're forced to spend money on rented accommodation.
Taking up an internship means committing to paying for two tube journeys and lunch every day ? and turning down the more menial paid work you might otherwise be doing during the holidays.
A commonly discussed solution is to force businesses to pay their interns the minimum wage, but that's not how the world works. Ultimately students need internships more than businesses need a helping hand in the holidays, so enforced wages would only cause businesses to cut internship programmes altogether.
And since internships offer such a great way to get a foot in the door, not to mention CV points, no student would want them to disappear.
If doing an unpaid internship means you might get a job, of course you'll take it. You'll find a way to make it work. But that doesn't mean that there aren't serious ethical questions, and these are questions that we shouldn't be afraid to ask.
? Have you been an intern ? or employed one? Do you think young people are being exploited by employers who ought to be paying them?
Drink, not fees, is the biggest problem at universities
Debt won't kill you, but alcoholism might, warns a student who knows what it is to pass out dressed as a lady
You might wonder how I came to find myself slumped against a wall, dressed in a frock with lipstick smeared across my face, slowly regaining consciousness at god knows what hour one Wednesday night.
It could only happen at university, and it could only happen after consuming copious amounts of alcohol.
My Lily Savage moment is not one I am proud of, but I share it because it highlights the extreme lows of student nightlife. Never mind tuition fees, alcohol abuse is the overwhelming problem at universities.
Fortunately I didn't spend the rest of my degree comatose on the pavements of Newcastle. But in my experience, there's no serious discussion on campuses about this issue. Students sink their pints in an ignorant haze, oblivious to the impending alcoholism that can so easily consume them.
A warning sticker on the back of a bottle counts for nothing when the bar is offering pints for just £1. A spokesman for Alcohol Concern says: "People aren't necessarily going to look at the warning and say, 'Oh, I better not'."
He adds: "Habituation is the real issue. Some people can just leave heavy drinking behind at university and get on with the rest of their lives but people who've got a propensity to problem drinking ? that can be what kicks them off.
"More needs to be done on campuses to keep an eye out for students who are succumbing to addiction."
Cut-price drinks offers in student bars often compound the problem, according to Pete Mercer, NUS vice-president (welfare): "I do think it's irresponsible actually. Also, the ridiculously low rates at which commercial bars can sell alcohol undermines any efforts that other, more responsible organisations make to prevent binge drinking and alcohol abuse."
When you wake up without knowing what happened to you the night before; when you lack the confidence to socialise without lining your stomach with spirits ? you have a problem.
The snag is, for most people, the penny drops too late.
Last year, as news editor of my student newspaper, I reported the case of a student left permanently brain-damaged after falling 20ft on a booze-fuelled night out.
"The commonest cause of death in young people, students for instance, is alcohol," says Dr Chris Record, a leading liver specialist, lecturer and consultant at Newcastle Freeman Hospital.
"They drink too much, they're sick, and they go and fall under a bus or they fall from a great height, and they kill themselves."
Now I'm a postgraduate student in London I see signs of the same problem ? hungover teenagers, the smell of alcohol wafting from every pore, stumbling bleary-eyed to lectures.
Universities are meant to produce the bright minds of the future; instead they're churning out thousands of students who think it's normal to drink their own body weight in booze on a night out.
How do we address an epidemic destroying the lives of young people before they've really started?
Digital literacy campaign ? best of your comments and ideas
As Michael Gove allows schools to write their own ICT and computing curricula, here are some of the most interesting ideas you put forward during our Digital Literacy campaign
Last week the Guardian launched a campaign to improve the teaching of computer science and IT in schools.
Businesses had complained that poor quality courses in schools, colleges and universities had led to a shortage of workers with programming skills, even as these skills become more and more relevant for a wider variety of jobs.
Michael Gove, the education secretary, agreed, and last Wednesday made a speech in which he scrapped the existing ICT curriculum ? which he felt left children "bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word and Excel by bored teachers" ? in favour of allowing schools to write their own, with input from businesses and universities.
On Friday the Royal Society published a report echoing the points made by our campaign and by Gove.
"We appear to have succeeded in making many people comfortable with using the technology that we find around us, but this seems to have been at the expense of failing to provide a deeper understanding of the rigorous academic subject of computer science," the report argued.
We ran a series of blogposts with experts taking part in live Q&As throughout the week, and the result, both there and beneath our major stories in the Digital literacy series, were huge numbers of intelligent, thoughtful comments from readers with experience in teaching, studying or working in IT and computer science.
Under Gove's plans, each school will now be free to experiment with its own curriculum ? although the exam boards that offer computer science and ICT GCSEs require students to study certain topics so the schools will not be able to go completely off piste.
These were some of the most interesting ideas you put forward during our week of Digital Literacy coverage:
? Many of you backed making some aspects of IT skills and computer science integral to every subject, so that IT in particular would "fade into oblivion" as it becomes embedded throughout the curriculum. Brucen asked: "How many music departments could create music in mp3 format, drama produce video mp4, English poetry mp3, MFL [modern foreign languages] using mp3s, video mp4 and not to mention using social media to connect to other schools, countries to facilitate collaborative, inquiry-based learning?"
? There was much debate over letting teachers use the internet more freely, or as cyberdoyle put it: "Let them use tech that works, not bloated firewalled Microsoft PCs ? Teachers who I speak to daren't use social media. Teachers I talk to haven't a clue how to use Google Docs. Teachers I talk to can't accept attachments. ? Getting a decent connection that just works like other utilities work is the first step." Despite brucen's impatient demand: "Please, no esafety arguments!" Milliew did indeed make this argument: "What I think you haven't appreciated is that by using web-based tools outside of school or college systems, we have to be very careful to protect both ourselves, and the students ? Unfortunately it is not as simple as just allowing the geeky teachers to go ahead and use new media and web 2.0, we have a responsibility to ensure that all those who partake in that activity are protected, and that takes time."
Genevieve Smith-Nunes, an ICT teacher at Dorothy Stringer high school in Brighton (GSmithNunes), added: "We only use free software so that students can access the applications outside of school. There are issues with installation and firewall but as long as you know that certain 'hiccups' might happen depending on what software is open during the lesson then you can plan accordingly ? I have rule in my classroom: You can play games as long as you code it yourself. Which some students have done and they were great lessons."
? There was much discussion of widening students' experience of computing to more than simply Microsoft Windows and Apple Macs. As bdonegan put it: "Too many people grow up thinking that PC = Windows and that the only alternative is Mac, which is cooler." Hannah Dee of Aberystwyth University (hanndee) explained why it is important to branch out: "By breadth, I mean teach more than one technology. This means more than one OS [operating system], more than one word processor, more than one spreadsheet, more than one programming language ... It's only when I learned my third programming language that I began to think of myself as a competent programmer - you see the similarities and the differences and this in itself gives depth. As an aside, I think it's tragic that many of our schools are Microsoft-only environments for this reason - if kids haven't seen a Linux box or a Mac, how can they know that computing isn't just MS?"
? Peter Twining of the Open University gave us a three-point plan to make sure a digital divide did not open up between richer pupils able to afford the latest computers and mobile devices, and their poorer classmates who could not:
- Providing an IT architecture which allows staff and pupils to connect using their own devices (cloud would help with this).
- Providing information and advice for parents about the technologies that are most useful to support learning in the school (I know that there are multiple correct "answers" to this).
- "Backfilling" for those pupils who do not have access to appropriate kit from home.
? The issue of why so few girls want to study computing was also debated in detail, with yestogrammarschools arguing that girls should be segregated by school or set to encourage them to take IT and computing - and hexadex and others calling for an end to course materials using supposedly "male" examples such as trains, robots, rugby, and Nick Hornby-style record collections. Many specific organisations such as Computer Clubs for Girls were also mentioned.
? Others offered specific elements they had introduced in their own teaching: crowdsourced map-making, the Python programming website, the Scratch website, which allows young people to make their own animations, games and music, the appgamekit and Future Pinball, which also allow kids to make their own games ? and many others.
The campaign is not over yet ? as schools begin to draw up their own new curricula in ICT and computing feel free to continue to debate about what they should include below.
Pay-as-you-go lectures would give us real choice
Turn us into consumers if you must, but at least give us the right to decide what we pay for, says winning student blogger
Education Guardian teamed up with Ones to Watch, the website that showcases the best UK student journalism, to launch a writing competition. We asked:
"With fees tripling to £9,000 a year at most universities, is it inevitable that the student will become a consumer?"
Here's our winner, Luke Braidwood.
"It's 9.45. I'm mildly hungover and relying on a strong black coffee to stay awake. The dulcet tones of a greying, portly biochemistry professor rumble around a gloomy lecture hall, which is clad in oak and filled with plastic chairs.
"We're learning about the organisation of the plant metabolic network, which is only about half as much fun as it sounds. After the summary, which seems strangely unfamiliar, we rummage around in our pockets, pull out £30, and place it on the front desk in a heap of crumpled notes and loose change. Sam asks me to lend him some cash; he's forgotten his wallet for the third time this month.
"The professor pulls out a hessian sack and sweeps the money (about £1,800) into it, then walks outside whistling.
"I have 10 lectures a week, some of them obtuse or incomprehensible, and place £300 weekly on front desks of lecture halls. There are 30 teaching weeks in a year, so I'm paying around £9,000 for all my lectures. I think about this as I look for a paracetamol in my bag, and wonder if I'm getting my money's worth."
Joe, the protagonist of this tale, lives in a slightly different world, where roughly £9,000 tuition fees are payable on a pay-as-you-go system. It's like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep with education instead of appliances. Joe can choose to stop attending the lectures on plant metabolism he finds so dreary, and save money on this module. Perhaps he will spend some of it on a plant metabolism textbook to help him in the exams.
Joe is a consumer: he pays only for what he wants. That way, the university receives detailed feedback on which topics and lecturers the student body values most. In our world, students must pay the full fee at the start of each year, and are expected turn up to the lectures, laboratory work and classes that the university provides.
With fees tripling, it is inevitable that students ? other than those born to very wealthy families ? will be thinking harder about whether to go to university and what to study. We've watched banks go down, and drag countries down, because of excessive borrowing, so mountainous debt isn't appealing to anyone.
Making young people think harder about the value of their degree may not be a bad thing. But the value of a degree is simply the perception of that degree by prospective employers. And their perception will have little to do with how well it was taught.
If Oxford stopped giving lectures tomorrow (and the media didn't notice), it would take many years for employers to realise the increased ineptitude of Oxford graduates, and start discriminating accordingly. In contrast, even the most dynamic, useful and thrilling degree may be undersubscribed if it's being offered by the new kid on the block ? because employers don't demand it.
The biggest problem with the fee rise is that it turns students into consumers who lack real choice. They can only pick between degrees, not within them. It's a system that which robs students of the opportunity to pay only for what benefits them most, and universities of the chance to learn how best to teach their students.
Is the number of first-class degrees cause for concern: Update
New data shows which degree subjects award the most and least firsts
Update: 16 January
Just wanted to update this blog with new data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), as promised.
I asked HESA which undergraduate degree subjects awarded the most ? and least ? firsts in 2006-07 and 2010-11.
Interestingly, mathematical sciences awarded the most firsts in 2006-07 and 2010-11. In 2006-07, 28.9% of those taking the subject gained a first. In 2010-11, 30% of those taking the subject were awarded a first.
Students of law are least likely to gain a first, it seems. In 2006-07, 5.8% did. In 2010-11, 8.1% did.
Uni is like coffee ? not worth it if it's mostly froth
Yes, students are consumers. And they need to learn how to complain
Education Guardian teamed up with Ones to Watch, the website that showcases the best UK student journalism, to launch a writing competition. We asked:
"With fees tripling to £9,000 a year at most universities, is it inevitable that the student will become a consumer?"
We are running the best three responses on our new Blogging Students page. Here's, Oli Hill, the second of the two runners-up.
'Tis the season for the next batch of school-leavers to draft and re-draft their personal statements, pester businesses near and far for work experience opportunities or simply sit on their behinds implementing an inspired plan to join the ever-growing dole queue.
The status of universities has evolved a great deal in the past few decades, switching from an elitist privilege to an educational free-for-all. You may embark on a degree that encompasses anything from "knitting" to "the art of walking" ? if you don't believe me, please do check the Ucas website for yourselves.
Some argue that universities are now reverting to the olden days of supplying pompous, highbrow education to those with the backing of a substantial Bank of Mum and Dad.
Whether that's true or not, one thing is for certain: the government can no longer sustain the current level of subsidy. This revelation has caused many a prospective student to flap their arms furiously in the air, claiming it to be the end of their short lives.
My year is the final crop of young adults to get the subsidised rate of £3,375 per annum, and we will enjoy this capped rate until we all graduate ? or drop out after one term.
This, however, is only half of our good fortune. Subsequent waves of fresh students will wade into uni life armed with around triple the figure that I am paying for my tuition fees. Applying everything I learned from my economics teacher at A-level, I deduce that the 2011 crowd will ride this tidal wave of extra cash, benefiting from brand-new equipment, higher teaching standards and more cheap drinks nights at the student bar.
More for less. Brilliant.
I personally feel that anyone in my year who opted to take a year out and defer their application is not intelligent enough to enter higher education.
Make no mistake, I would be physically shaking at the thought of paying £9,000 a year to study a subject at degree level. Nor should you presume that I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I actually come from a farming background ? and we all know farmers are the first to grumble when it comes to feeling cash-strapped.
Yes, it is inevitable that uni students will become consumers, but I don't think this is such an awful tragedy. If students are going to be forking out three times as much as I am for their education, I would advise them to get their money's worth and ditch the typically British way of keeping quiet when something is of poor quality. If everyone did this, universities would probably regret the whole fees saga.
I already view myself as a customer of my university. If I think something is taught poorly by a lecturer, it's in my interest to make my views known, not to mention everyone else's too. It's like getting a cappuccino that's freezing cold and 99% froth ? you are going to complain because it cost you money and tastes terrible.
See what I mean?
Digital literacy - women in computing live Q&A
Experts from Aberystwyth University, the Open University, and developers' network Young Rewired State discuss women in programming, and also ask: how much digital literacy do young people need?
In response to GoogleWhack's suggestion of exercises that might appeal to pupils:
Maybe something like:
"Today we will be creating an app for you blackberry in which you can rate boys in order of hotness."
OR
"Today we will be creating a fashion blog where you can share your latest outfits and styles"
I think this is falling into the Girly Telescope Trap. Take something vaguely computing, stick "stuff we think girls like" (fashion, boys) on the end, turn it pink, and HEY IT'LL APPEAL TO THE GIRLS. And I'm sorry, but creating a blog is trivial.
Why not ask the class to brainstorm ideas for apps - see what topics people want to create. If you find the whole class making fashion apps, then cool, that's what they want to do. But computing is a set of principals and tools and ways of thinking - if we're careful about how we frame it (make an app, make a game, build a website, show these skills) we can be properly gender neutral and we can let the kids be creative about what they want to use computing for.
The debate continues in the comments below. Thanks very much to our three guests - and thanks for all your comments and questions so far.
Pete Bradshaw of the Open University notes:
One of the things not to do is to pack the curriculum with stuff that you need to know. And you set open ended tasks. For example... the BAFTA Be Very Afraid series. Why Be Very Afraid? Because it can be frightening what students can achieve (see hubmum's list above too).
How did the learn to produce these videos? By being given the tools, the confidence and the freedom. By being guided, facilitated, trusted. By being allowed to collaborate, to enquire. By not being told "You are 13... you must do this".
That way they develop attitudes that enable them to apply their understandings to future scenarios.
An analogy... I learnt German not by endless tables of verbs, conjugations, cases etc. Not intially. But by speaking, listening, enjoying... my teachers gave me the opportunity to try things out (don't ever ask me to book a curling rink in Tirolean German though).
My colleague Laura Oliver asked:
how do you teach skills/encourage ways of learning that will equip students with ability to deal with the quickly developing nature of technology and the tech industry? e.g. how best to keep their understanding current (especially I'm thinking at school leaver age?) so they are in the best possible position to apply these skills
Emma Mulquenny (hubmum) replied:
Well, through Young Rewired State what I have seen is that the kids started with very basic rudimentary knowledge of a little bit of everything. Then I noticed they started coming to every hack day, challenging themselves to learn something fast, over the course of two days and then showing off the results - then going home an dpractising more, perhaps being mentored by others they met on the weekend, or on twitter or stack overflow and the rest... This works well for the 16-18s.
Make it a time challenge and a competition, provide the stimulus (personally I always choose the route of the hack day) and go from there.
Hannah Dee of Aberystwyth University posts this great comment with a great illustration.
I'm going to say something a little controversial now - I think that one thing we really have to avoid is what I call the girlie telescope effect. Toys R Us used to sell 3 telescopes - a grey one, a black one, and a pink one. The pink one had less than half the magnification of the others.
I think that some of the initiatives for getting girls interested in computing and IT have made the same mistake - and I include parts of CC4G in this. Make it pink and some girls will love it, but some will hate it and stay away.
And if the girls are making nice pink fashion designs whilst the boys are programming robots, then you're not helping girls learn about IT or computing, you're just letting them do drawings in a different medium whilst the guys get some interesting & useful skills.
I don't have all the answers, but I do think that there are some very cool things coming out now
* app programming - Google appInventor was awesome but is currently offline whilst it transfers to MIT Media lab
* wearable technology (check out Leah Buechley and the lilypad arduino, for example)
* generally the links between the maker community and crafting
It doesn't have to be pink to appeal to girls, but it does have to be fun. Actually, if it's fun, it'll appeal to the boys too and surely that's the holy grail here?
(Here's a link to the catalogue entry for the telescopes, in case you don't believe me.)
_
Hannah Dee responds to hexadex's comment quoted at 12.30pm:
@Hexadex it's sad to hear that you're finding course material in your uni biased towards guys. It's something I try to fight whenever I see it - as an example, I challenged a colleague once about a coursework based upon software for rugby team organisation; yes, some women do like rugby, but it'd be very easy to make it about something gender-neutral. The feedback issue is one that I think is really important - you need to feel comfortable in the group (and not invisible).
The CouchDB & FlashBelt talks you link are disgusting. But I like to think they're more the product of junior idiots than seniors in the industry.
Everyone I've spoken to who's senior has regarded these two presenters as juvenile little $&%£s.
You should think about coming to the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium this year - it'll be in Bath on April 20th - and it's for undergraduate women. There will be travel bursaries available. There are lots of women undergrads and women staff, across the UK, and sometimes it really helps to get a load of them in the same place.
I have to disagree with your point about robots being masculine though. Robots aren't masculine by definition - they're awesome fun:-)
The debate with our experts has begun below the line. Just to recap, they are:
? Hannah Dee, a lecturer in computer science at Aberystwyth University. In 2008 she started the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium, a national conference for women computer science students, and she is deputy chair of BCSWomen, which she says is the UK's largest group for women working and studying in technology.
? Peter Bradshaw, head of qualification for the master's in education at the Open University. He is also working member of the Computing in School association, and a member of the committee of IT in Teacher Education Association. He blogs here.
? Emma Mulqueeny, who runs hack day organisers Rewired State and Young Rewired State, a network of young developers.
Reader afinch commented:
One of the best changes in education was the way GCSEs approached modern languages. Translating newspapers and essays about your holidays in French were ditched, and practical conversations about buying train tickets and making friends were in. Less writing, more speaking and listening. It became useful. The same needs to happen to computing.
I agree. There is an irony here though. GCSEs were introduced just a year before the National Curriculum (NC) in England. There wasn't a GCSE in ICT at first but the NC provided, and continues to provide (see my blog post on this), ample scope for creative engaging teaching of the concepts and practicalities of using digital technologies. The problem was that when GCSE qualifications came in as a universal panacea for school league table performance they destroyed this by turning the subject into a sausage machine.
Hannah Dee (posting as handee) discusses how computing is perceived:
I don't think the current perception of computing is accurate at all, and I'm really not sure how to change that. I'm an academic computer scientist - and I think I spend about 10% of my time actually coding (and that includes coding in teaching sessions). The vision of a computer person as a lone guy sat in a box hacking code (the "Assange" model) is outdated, and was probably never true in the first place.
Emma Mulqueeny (hubmum) responds to the comment I posted at the start of the day from pauldanon, that computer programming "is a minority-occupation" and a campaign to encourage more people to learn it would be "like teaching children car mechanics because driving is a useful skill".
1. It is not a minority occupation, it is a huge growth market for jobs, we have unemployed youth and no programmers, instead having to bring them in from overseas.
2. The difference between a programmer and a non-programmer is more the difference between driver and passenger, not driver and mechanic.
3. As the world moves towards greater dependency on digital products, software and robotics to operate much of the routine in our lives - so it becomes ever more important that everybody at least understands computational thinking, algorithms - that it is not digital voodoo, everything is written, coded and decided by a human - who does not know you. Mindlessly staggering forward without having even the basic understanding of how everything works is restrictive, scary and hugely limiting.
Glad I got that out of my system!!!
More great comments from below the line. KateClick writes:
When I was in education over 20 years ago we didn't have computer studies in the girls school I went to... just home economics & needlework... (in contrast my brother got to study IT & technical drawing)... Since leaving school I have never needed my 'skills' of making a swiss roll or embroidering an apron. Luckily my parents could afford a BBC Micro when they first came out so I was able to teach myself.
Things are already a lot better for girls, but there is still a 'bully culture' for want of a better description around boys-toys & computers - particularly gaming. There are lots of amazing people working against this though. I'm talking at a @gamesbritannia event later this year to a room full of girl students about this very topic...
An overhaul of the curriculum is well overdue too... IT studies should be so much more than just learning admin & secretarial skills!!
From hexadex:
I am currently studying Computer Science as a mature, female student.
There are definitely things that could be done to make Computer Science more appealing to girls and women with regards to teaching styles and the design of curricula.
My course materials seem to have been designed with men/geeks in mind. Study materials use examples such as trains, robots etc. Exercises involve alphabetising one's CD collections a la Nick Hornby and animating steam trains. You are left with the impression that the course was written for men by men.
During group work our tutor gave feedback to my group that assumed that all group members were male (his, him) etc.
As a minority, perhaps I shouldn't be bothered by such things. However it's small things like this that may lead girls and women to feel like CS is not really a subject for "them". I don't want a course designed around "pink" things or Barbie dolls as that would be equally as offputting, but I would prefer the materials to be a little more gender-neutral.
Also if you look at the way that certain seniors in the industry behave towards women (eg here, here), then it also makes you wonder if CS is the kind of industry you want to work in as a woman.
A good comment from Miriwoo below the line:
I loathed IT GCSE at school as there was far too much focus on documentation and using programs rather than writing them. Thankfully I persevered and am now studying Computer Science at Uni. I think girls just need to find something that they are interested in within the subject. I was at an all girls school and only 3 of around 150 girls took Computing A Level.
Comments keep coming in about education secretary Michael Gove's speech announcing the overhauling of the ICT curriculum yesterday.
Liz Wilkins of Adobe, the software company, welcomed Gove's proposals to scrap the existing ICT curriculum and create an "open source" curriculum in computer science by giving schools the freedom to use teaching resources designed with input from leading employers and academics, in changes that will come into effect this September.
To have a real impact, schools must make technology integral to each and every part of the curriculum, incorporating it across the syllabus rather than treating it as a discrete subject. With the right framework and support from teachers, this approach has the potential to transform lessons by encouraging creativity and a deeper level of pupil engagement.
Colin McDonald of e-learning organisation Learndirect agreed:
Whilst its right to move away from ICT lessons, it's our view technology should be threaded through all forms of learning as it can help in every classroom and in any subject ? whether for children or adults, in formal or informal settings. More and more people live their lives using technology and the education sector should recognise and build on this, whilst still supporting those who don't have access to IT at home.
Blogger Richard Hall gives his views in a lengthy but interesting post, taking issue with the way that in the drive to improve computer science teaching "education is subsumed under the dictates of profitability, competitiveness and the commodity form".
Of Gove's invitation to "universities, businesses and others" to "devise new courses and exams" for the ICT curriculum, he quotes Christopher Newfield on the Remaking the University blog as saying it "means that the public, directly or indirectly, does not participate in the investment, research, and development decisions that remake society year in and year out. It hands over resources and all decision rights at the same time."
Hello and welcome to today's live blog as the Guardian's Digital literacy campaign continues.
Earlier this week my colleague Jessica Shepherd published an interview with one of the world's leading computer scientists, Professor Dame Wendy Hall.
Hall said the problem of a scarcity of girls studying computer science was "getting worse" despite huge efforts from the scientific community to address the issue. She told Jessica that girls still perceived computing to be "for geeks" and that this had proved to be a "cultural" obstacle, so far impossible to overcome. Hall said:
Girls have been further put off by dumbing down computing to IT literacy ... They think that if they study computing they are going to become secretaries ? We have never broken out of the "toys for the boys" perception of computer science.
Figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that in 2009, the most recent year available, women made up only 16% of students on computer science undergraduate degree courses. Last summer 148 girls took the AQA exam board's computing A-level ? compared to 2,123 boys.
With us to discuss women in computing from 1pm-2pm will be:
? Hannah Dee, a lecturer in computer science at Aberystwyth University. In 2008 she started the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium, a national conference for women computer science students, and she is deputy chair of BCSWomen, which she says is the UK's largest group for women working and studying in technology.
? Peter Bradshaw, head of qualification for the master's in education at the Open University. He is also working member of the Computing in School association, and a member of the committee of IT in Teacher Education Association. He blogs here.
? Emma Mulqueeny, who runs hack day organisers Rewired State and Young Rewired State, a network of young developers.
Our panel will also attempt to answer a question that has frequently come up in the comment threads below our Digital literacy blogposts and stories this week: how much digital literacy do young people need?
Pauldanon's comment on my first blogpost on Monday sums up one side of the argument quite succintly: Computer programming, he said, "is a minority-occupation". A campaign to encourage more people to learn it would be "like teaching children car mechanics because driving is a useful skill".
Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, made a speech which touched on computing in schools last week. In his speech he praised the City Academy in Norwich as an example of a school that excels in teaching computing and IT.
I have seen schools that do this incredibly effectively. I visited the City Academy in Norwich last autumn, which has had a huge upturn in results and attainment in recent years. With specialisms in ICT and English, they have a dedicated technology suite, equipped with the latest Macbooks, where I saw children engaged in online research, blog writing and commenting on each others' posts. The use of technology promotes enjoyment, often facilitating the most effective style of learning, when pupils aren't even aware they are being 'taught'. In Norwich they have pinned up QR codes across the school, so pupils can take part in an educational treasure hunt through the school corridors. And I even had the chance to be quizzed by future Jeremy Paxmans, as two Year 7s put me through my interview paces in their video editing facility.
Some of these examples are undeniably impressive ? year seven pupils interviewing a shadow minister in an edit suite, for example. But some are more arguable ? should blogging and commenting be taught in schools, or is this something young people will happily pick up themselves, with or without lessons?
Your comments have been very informative all week so please keep them coming. Post questions for the panel or your own thoughts and ideas below.
Is the number of first-class degrees cause for concern?
Should we be worried that the proportion of firsts has risen dramatically in the last four years, asks Jessica Shepherd
The latest figures out from the Higher Education Statistics Agency may well fuel fears that grade inflation is rife in UK universities.
The statistics show the proportion of undergraduates being awarded first-class degrees has risen rapidly in the last four years.
The proportion of firsts for each university will be published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency on 23 February. It will be interesting to see whether particular groups of universities are awarding many more firsts than they used to be, or if all are.
So is this grade inflation or has the calibre of students attending UK universities dramatically improved?
Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute thinktank, says it may be a combination.
This is a huge increase. I suspect students have become more serious as the job market becomes tougher. They are pulling their fingers out.
Bekhradnia says teaching may well be better. Lecturers now face rigorous training before they teach undergraduates.
There's no doubt that one can be concerned about grade inflation. But we don't know how much, if at all, this has contributed.
Geoffrey Alderman, a professor of politics at Buckingham University and a former university administrator, says that universities that experience a jump in the number of firsts should conduct inquiries into why this might be.
The Higher Education Statistics Agency says the firsts do not disproportionately come from overseas students.
Digital literacy campaign ? Michael Gove speech and live Q&A
Live coverage as Michael Gove sets out plans for changes to computing and IT in schools, and experts from Google, schools and universities debate all the issues
? Read Michael Gove's speech in full
Hello and welcome to today's live blog as the Guardian's Digital literacy campaign continues.
Michael Gove, the education secretary, is due to make a speech at 10.30am, announcing the overhauling of computer science in schools, at the Bett education technology trade fair in London.
Jeevan Vasagar has a full report here.
Gove will say the existing curriculum in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has left children "bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word and Excel by bored teachers".
He plans, in effect, to create an "open source" curriculum in computer science by giving schools the freedom to use teaching resources designed with input from leading employers and academics, in changes that will come into effect this September.
Gove is expected to tell the trade fair:
Imagine the dramatic change which could be possible in just a few years, once we remove the roadblock of the existing ICT curriculum. Instead of children bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word and Excel by bored teachers, we could have 11-year-olds able to write simple 2D computer animations using an MIT tool called Scratch.
By 16, they could have an understanding of formal logic previously covered only in university courses and be writing their own apps for smartphones.
A consultation on the plans will be launched next week ? but please tell me what you think of his plans in the comments below (you can read about them in full here). If the speech is televised I'll live blog it here, and I'll round up reaction from elsewhere too.
Also today on the live blog we will have a Q&A on how teachers can use new technology to improve their teaching in various subjects ? as well as the issues Gove's speech raises and any others you want to cover.
With us from 1pm-2pm will be:
? Andrew Eland, Google's lead software engineer.
? Kevin McLaughlin, a teacher responsible for ICT at Old Mill primary school in Broughton Astley, Leicestershire, who writes the ICT Steps blog.
? Sue Sentance, a senior lecturer in ICT and computing education at Anglia Ruskin University.
? Genevieve Smith-Nunes, an ICT teacher at Dorothy Stringer high school in Brighton.
Please add your comments and questions for them below.
Yesterday Jeevan Vasagar looked at new technical innovations that could improve learning in the classroom, including computer programmes used to teach maths, and the motion-capture device Kinect in music classes. Let me know what else you think could be used to help improve teaching ? or what is being used already.
I was hoping to live blog Michael Gove's speech from the office (my colleague Jeevan Vasagar is watching the speech and will be filing a story after it finishes). However, I don't think it is going to be televised, so I have asked the Department for Education to send me a copy of the speech in full and I'll put as much of it as possible up here so you can judge for yourselves what he is saying.
The Department for Education press office presents Gove's move as scrapping the existing ICT curriculum and replacing it with "new courses of study in computer science" ? but it goes on to say that schools would then have the "freedom" to create curricula involving both ICT and computer science.
ICT will remain a compulsory part of the national curriculum ? although this may change in the review of the curriculum due to report next year.
Universities, businesses and others will "have the opportunity to devise new courses and exams" in ICT and computer science, and Gove in particular wants a new "high-quality" computer science GCSE to be introduced.
In his speech, which was due to be taking place right about now, he also announced:
? Funding for new "Teaching Schools" to enable them to create "strong networks between schools" to help them develop and improve their use of technology.
? That we should "look at the school curriculum in a new way, and consider how new technological platforms can help to create new curriculum materials in a much creative and collaborative way than in the past".
? A focus on improving initial teacher training and continual professional development for teachers in educational technology.
Ian Livingstone, the chair of the Next Gen Skills campaign and co-author of the Livingstone-Hope skills review of video games and visual effects, gave the BBC his reaction to Gove's speech:
The current lessons are essentially irrelevant to today's generation of children who can learn PowerPoint in a week. It's a travesty given our heritage as the most creative nation in the world. Children are being forced to learn how to use applications, rather than to make them. They are becoming slaves to the user interface and are totally bored by it.
Michael Gove's speech is being broadcast here by eyebeams ? but unfortunately the sound is not great.
Gove is recalling starting out in journalism in the 1980s and says newsrooms today are "almost totally unrecognisable" because of new technology.
Gove is running through how important the internet is now and how few people even knew what it was 20 years ago.
But school education has lagged behind, Gove says.
We all need to be alive to the great promise of innovation, Gove says. He pays tribute to computing pioneer, mathematician and second world war codebreaker Alan Turing (left).
Gove attacks the spending of "huge sums" on hardware that becomes obsolete quickly.
Games and interactive software can help pupils acquire complicated skills, Gove says. He says some people will raise their eyebrows at the prospect of games influencing school curricula, but we should be proud of the British games industry, he says.
By its very nature, new technology is a disruptive force, Gove says. It encourages change. But technology can bring more autonomy to education. He says the government wants to focus on training teachers, rather than buying hardware.
Technology in schools will no longer be micromanaged by Whitehall, Gove says. From September this year schools will be free to use the "amazing resources" that already exist and will exist on the web, he says.
Computer science is fascinating and intellectually challenging, he says.
The teaching union the NASUWT has attacked Michael Gove's proposals. Chris Keates, the union's general secretary, said it was right that what was taught was regularly reviewed given "the rapid nature of developments in technology", but she rejected "the notion that ICT in schools is of poor quality and dull". She said:
Such assertions are based on a deliberate misrepresentation of the evidence which in fact demonstrates widespread good practice which needs to be built upon. People listening to the secretary of state may think that he is being constructive and progressive. In reality, he is once again removing any notion of curriculum entitlement for all children and young people.
For many children and young people a direct consequence of the "free for all" the secretary of state is promoting for ICT in schools will be that, in yet another aspect of education, they will be short-changed.
For many specialist teachers their jobs are now at risk. Schools are being handed over to the mercy and monopoly of multi-national companies, as national support frameworks, which provide value for money for schools and taxpayers and much needed impartial advice and expertise are removed.
Gove's speech has finished. Sorry about the very incomplete reporting. I will get you the full speech as soon as possible.
Here is Michael Gove's speech in full.
Stephen Twigg, Michael Gove's Labour shadow, has responded to the education secretary's speech. He broadly welcomes it:
It is right to identify that the ICT curriculum needs to be reformed to fit with the times. That's why Labour said last year that pupils need to understand the mechanisms and coding behind computer programmes ? not just learning how to use a word processor, enter data into a worksheet or design a PowerPoint presentation.
Ofsted found that in two thirds of secondary schools, ICT teaching is only satisfactory or poor. As well as updating programmes of study, we need better teacher training, higher standards and continual assessment of what pupils are being taught.
If the UK is to maintain our competitive edge, this generation of students need to develop their programming skills and an understanding of how maths, computing and science interrelate.
I have just read the whole of Michael Gove's speech.
Gove announced that if the new computer science GCSE meet "high standards of intellectual depth and practical value", the government will "certainly consider" including computer science as an option in the English baccalaureate - which currently includes English, maths, two sciences, a foreign language and history or geography.
He says that despite technology changing just about every aspect of life, education is still much the same as it was in Plato's time.
A Victorian schoolteacher could enter a 21st century classroom and feel completely at home. Whiteboards may have eliminated chalk dust, chairs may have migrated from rows to groups, but a teacher still stands in front of the class, talking, testing and questioning.
But he predicts that the model of teaching will be extinct by 10 or 20 years.
He attacks previous governments for spending huge sums on hardware "which is obsolete before the ink is dry on the contract". Instead he wants to focus on improving teacher training.
He says there are three main things that technology can do for learning:
? Disseminate knowledge incredibly widely.
? It can change the way teachers teach, with adaptive software personalising learning.
? It can allow teachers to assess pupils in more complex and sophisticated ways.
He says he is "opening a consultation" on withdrawing the existing national curriculum programme of study for ICT. The subject "is a mess". But opening a consultation seems to mean scrapping it.
Let me stress - ICT will remain compulsory at all key stages, and will still be taught at every stage of the curriculum. The existing Programme of Study will remain on the web for reference. But no English school will be forced to follow it any more.
Gove also talks about taking a "wiki, collaborative approach" to the wider curriculum.
And he suggests integrating and embedding technology through every subject.
He also notes that Nesta, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, is today announcing a £2m programme to fund and research "innovative technology projects" in schools.
Our live debate is now beginning in the comments below. To remind you, our guests are:
? Andrew Eland, Google's lead software engineer.
? Kevin McLaughlin, a teacher responsible for ICT at Old Mill primary school in Broughton Astley, Leicestershire, who writes the ICT Steps blog.
? Sue Sentance, a senior lecturer in ICT and computing education at Anglia Ruskin University.
? Genevieve Smith-Nunes, an ICT teacher at Dorothy Stringer high school in Brighton.
Genevieve has kicked things off by noting:
They are many challenges and barriers to learning both for teachers and students. These cover equipment, subject knowledge and ability levels within the classroom. I love my lessons now that we design games, code using Alice, HTML, Scratch and more recently Greenfoot. The use of smartphones as a learning tool for the teachers and students. The list is endless and now with Gove's announcemnt the curriculum looks a lot more exciting.
Sue Sentance of Anglia Ruskin University notes that it is "not clear from Gove's speech how removing the Programme of Study for ICT will be implemented". She adds:
I am not sure from what Gove says what will be offered at KS4 [year 10 and 11, age 15/16] - September 2012 is a very short timescale.
Andrew Eland of Google has joined the debate in the comments, welcoming Michael Gove's speech.
At Google, we're delighted that the government has recognised how important computer science is to the future of the country. We're excited to see how these changes will be picked up by schools. There are many expert organisations, such as CAS [Computing at School], thinking about this already - and we're keen to support them, rather than get involved in the classroom directly.
Kevin McLaughlin, of Old Mill primary school, Leicestershire, says his only concern with Michael Gove's speech today is "how schools with non-ICT specialist staff will implement his 'no blueprint to follow' approach". He adds:
Training teachers is also a concern as once the training is completed will the teachers continue to keep up top of an ever changing world that technology offers?
He also asks: "How do you inspect a subject which is being left up to every school to decide an approach on?"
Sue Sentance of Anglia Ruskin University notes:
Many schools are becoming academies and will be able to decide whether or not to follow the national curriculum, so whether ICT has a programme of study or not will be irrelevant to them?
Kevin McLaughlin of Old Mill primary school wrote:
It's just been mentioned on Twitter than some think Gove is washing his hands of ICT and leaving it up to schools to decide.
Watfordpete ? Pete Bradshaw of the Open University ? responded:
It could be read that way but I can't imagine such a scenario given Ofsted and accountability. There is a rhetoric of freedom but what would the Daily Mail say? Government wouldn't risk that. So then that leads back to the inspection and assessment regimes. These need to be looked at together with the curriculum or I fear a return to the endless guidance like the QCA and Standards Unit Schemes of Work which were largely to blame, in my view, for boring lessons.
To which Sue Sentance of Anglia Ruskin University wrote:
Ofsted and the curriculum - all academies will be inspected by Ofsted but they can determine their own curriculum and don't need to follow the NC. So how Ofsted inspect without a statutory POS [programme of study] to look at will be a broader question, I guess, not just for ICT.
Thanks very much to all our guests who took part in today's Q&A ? and thanks for all your comments and questions too.
Here is some more reaction to Michael Gove's speech, this time from Phil Smith, the UK and Ireland CEO of Cisco, the technology company. Smith welcomes Gove's moves to overhaul ICT teaching.
Young people today have a relationship with technology and an affinity for computers and IT which is unique and vastly different to any other generation. It is essential to the future of the British economy that we address the shortcomings in ICT education and help school children and students to maximise their potential ? failure to do this will result in a detrimental skills shortage for IT in the very near future ...
We need to build a creative, highly-skilled workforce which can drive these initiatives forward in the long term and enable continued future growth for IT. Without this, such initiatives will only deliver short term benefits and never reach their full potential. For Britain to compete on a global scale in the tech sector, bold moves need to happen now.
Karen Price, the CEO of e-skills UK, the skills council for the IT industry, has also commented on Gove's speech. (Skills councils are state-sponsored bodies set up to improve the skills and productivity of specific sectors of the economy.)
The door is now wide open to create a new and relevant curriculum that will inspire students and ensure that the UK can retain its position at the forefront of technology.
IT drives productivity in every sector and is the engine for growth across the whole economy. That is why we are working with leading employers through our Behind the Screen project to create a new GCSE in IT.
Here Charles Arthur, the Guardian's technology editor, looks at the case of Josh Pickett, whose teacher was unable to mark his computer homework when he was 13 and who now, still only 16, works for a tech company in San Francisco.
And here Jessica Shepherd, the Guardian's education correspondent, reveals that pupils from private and grammar schools disproportionately sit what is perceived to be the hardest computing A-level.
Pete Bradshaw of the Open University, who has been commenting below the line here this week, asks of Gove's speech:
What guidance will the new Teaching Agency give to teacher educators? I hope it will be equally liberating.
What will Ofsted do? How will they cope without a ticklist?
My fear is that, as in the late 90s, schools will be inspected under a regime that has certain presumptions about what and how to teach ICT (or computer science). What if the school has a radically different view? I know the obvious answers are to do with looking for quality outcomes in broad terms but I fear a plethora of 'guidance' which becomes a de facto curriculum which then leads to exactly the same problems we perceive now.
He also takes issue with the idea that the existing IT curriculum is boring.
Thanks for all your questions and comments today. Tomorrow we will be discussing women in computing as well as attempting to answer the question: how much digital literacy do young people need? With us from 1pm-2pm will be:
? Hannah Dee, a lecturer in computer science at Aberystwyth University. In 2008 she started the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium, a national conference for women computer science students, and she is deputy chair of BCSWomen, which she says is the UK's largest group for women working and studying in technology.
? Peter Bradshaw, head of qualification for the master's in education at the Open University. He is also working member of the Computing in School association, and blogs here.
? Emma Mulqueeny, who runs hack day organisers Rewired State and Young Rewired State, a network of young developers.
Join us tomorrow and thanks again for all your input.
Students are already consumers - but will we get cannier?
It's easy to portray government reforms as a Dickensian nightmare. But there is something to be gained from seeing university education as a commodity, says Lucy Snow
Education Guardian teamed up with Ones to Watch, the website that showcases the best UK student journalism, to launch a writing competition. We asked:
"With fees tripling to £9,000 a year at most universities, is it inevitable that the student will become a consumer?"
Here's, Lucy Snow, the first of two runners-up.
"Students as consumers" is one of those horrid phrases that provokes much indignant bleating: education becoming a commodity, universities becoming sausage factories, lecturers becoming Gove's finger puppets.
But students have been consumers ever since fees were introduced, by definition. University offers us a product ? made up of libraries, academic experts, careers advice ? and, rightly or wrongly, we pay what the government deems is an appropriate price.
The real question is, will increasing these fees make students more aware of their status as consumers, and demand more bang for their buck? Or will the result be a creativity-sapping Dickensian nightmare: Mr M'Choakumchild at the helm churning out graduates like "so many pianoforte legs"?
University should be about creativity, and education for education's sake. My BA degree has been amazing and enriching, a golden period between the box-ticking of secondary school and the online numeracy and non-verbal reasoning tests apparently integral to getting any graduate job.
But many a morning I have had to convince myself to get out of bed and go to my lecture by working out exactly how much each hour of contact time is costing me.
Does my awareness of this negate the positive stuff? As with most student issues, opinion tends to be polarised: either you're a free-spirited creative sticking it to the man, or you're an institutionalised scab practically encouraging higher fees by utilising every cringeworthy opportunity to "network" that the careers centre gives you.
However, I believe that an appreciation of the purely educative, enriching processes of higher education can exist alongside an awareness that students should be offered a range of services in return for their fees.
As much as events entitled "How to sell yourself to employees" and "How to use social networking to get ahead" may turn your stomach, they are attempts to improve the consumer experience and give students a leg up in a saturated jobs market. There should be no shame in accepting this help, and no dent to your academic or creative integrity.
Against a backdrop of anti-capitalist protests, it's difficult to see the phrase "student as consumers" in anything other than a negative light.
But university is a unique product that markets itself to you at great expense. Students need to be conscious consumers so we can get the best out of our three years.
When it comes to the business of learning, it's not what your university can do for you, but rather what you can do for yourself ? with the resources and support provided.