I found myself in a place I haven’t been for far too many years to disclose last week – a secondary school! Kirk and I were involved in an initiative with schools from the Angus area to promote the uptake of computer science in secondaries in a bid to reverse the decline in places sought on computing courses in Scotland’s universities.
The initiative, the brainchild of Carole Munro, Principal Teacher Curriculum (Technology) of Arbroath High School, saw each of the eight Angus schools enter a team of four, third year pupils to take part in a competition to produce a page for a website, promoting their own town. The pupils were asked to use specialist software which they were only introduced to on the day and were given just basic instruction on how to use it.
The pupils had approximately 3 hours to complete the task and then were asked to ‘sell’ the pitch to a panel of ‘clients’ who included our very own Mr Potter.
I was absolutely blown away by the high standard of submissions from the pupils. And their ability to navigate round the new software completely unfazed would put most adults to shame.
As a company, we were delighted to be asked to sponsor the competition and to take part in the day itself. However it’s a little worrying that the issues surrounding the reason for the competition could have far reaching implications for businesses in Scotland.
Indeed, uptake of pure computing courses in Scotland’s universities has been on the decline for several years resulting in good development staff being thin on the ground. If this trend continues, businesses will be forced to move development work overseas which is bad news for the Scottish technology community.
Interesting however is the fact that Computer Gaming courses are among the most sought after places in further education. So perhaps we need to teach our kids that there is more to computer skills than Grand Theft Auto and Wii Fit...
