By Will Sturgeon, 4 September 2002 16:00
NEWS With the words 'back to school' on the lips of parents up and down the country silicon.com recently looked into the state of IT in our education system.
A number of stories revealed the facts and figures behind government spending on school and also exposed teachers' fears. Many of you had opinions on the matter. Here is a selection of what you had to say:
Skills for life?
By Duncan Gibb
I think one of the things which contributes to this mindset is a failure to recognise the difference between education and training. If you look at the job ads now, you'll see every PA and every marketing assistant is expected to know how to use Word and Excel. So schools think they're doing the right thing by training young people in the specific skills which are 'required' in the workplace.
However, a first-year secondary school pupil might not be looking for a job for 10 to 15 years, by which time an intimate familiarity with Microsoft Word might be as useful a skill as being able to drive a traction engine (although the latter, I'm sure, is more fun).
Educating young people about what computers are and the general principles of how they work will be much more useful in the long run. I'd rather employ someone who can figure out how to use any application inside an hour than a shrink-wrapped operator for shrink-wrapped software.
Poor pay and conditions...
By Adrian Asher
As an IT professional I spent six of my 16 years working in education, but the reason I don't work in schools, or even for LEAs, anymore is that I'm not prepared to accept the salaries and conditions on offer.
This isn't IT - it's button pressing
By David Edwards
MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Nothing about networking, programming, systems, design or analysis. Sorry folks it is not IT - it's officeware.
...But most people just press buttons...
By Allan Shriver
It's one thing to teach kids how to push buttons on GUI packages so they can do their work more easily - and quite another to learn how to understand computers/computing or how to programme software.
For primary and most secondary school kids, it is quite enough to learn how to 'push buttons' on GUI packages - that's what most office workers do!
When they get to secondary school, they can then decide whether to pursue 'computing' as an AS or A level - though few schools offer this.
Another vote against 'button pushing'
By Fisher
As an ebusiness consultant who once taught in secondary schools I am appalled by the vast waste of taxpayers' money on 'solutions' from the leeches in my industry.
Kids aren't learning to understand computers or to create software, they are simply being taught to push buttons on GUI packages. Far better to throw the lot out, replace them with free open source software and spend the money on employing teachers to teach computer programming.
...Ah...but...
By Mike Gilbert
Fisher makes the usual geek mistake of thinking that everyone is going to be a programmer.
Having been involved in selling ICT solutions into schools from the days of the BBC Micro, I'm a bit annoyed at the blanket 'leeches' comment. Sure, there are parasites in our business. Most of the customers haven't a clue about ICT at all - no matter what stats the survey gives. The DfES' obsession with a pupil:computer ratio on a national basis is a nonsense. It gives no idea about the actual use of ICT by pupils, and is distorted in the same way as mean calculations of salary.
And then there's the 'so-called' teachers...
By Steve Princep
This article is all well and good. However, having rolled out an NT network to a college in Guildford and having met the so-called IT teacher (who incidentally could not remember the procedure to set up a new user on NT4 from one side of the weekend to the other after already creating about 300 new users!). I for one will be teaching my own kids about the finer details of things IT.
Such arrogance...
By Glynys Honor
Steve Princep's comments about the 'so-called' IT teacher at the school where he set up an NT network are arrogant to say the least and the implication that he tars all IT teachers with the same brush is ill-informed.
I was driven out of education by the combination of doing an impossible job which took all my weekends and holidays to try to keep up. The attitude of outsiders like Mr Princep didn't help especially when they liked to make their subjective opinions public.
Now I manage a Technical Support helpdesk, Support Analysts, a Comms team and an Admin team. Yes - it's stressful but at least I have weekends to recover. If I work on a weekend now, it's because I choose to and I get paid for it. Would I go back to teaching? No way with conditions as they are at the moment - life is much easier setting up networks!
'So-called teachers' no worse than so-called techies
By James Coles
The provision for ICT in schools is 'patchy'. I've worked in many schools and it's been my experience that ICT is only taught well in those schools where Senior Management take it seriously and insist that it is taught and funded adequately.
I'm lucky that I now work in a Technology College which is also a Special School. ICT has opened many opportunities for our children.
The comment about the 'so-called IT teacher' though is the usual 'bad teacher' story that the media always includes. I've met some plonkers who work in IT but I'm not going to bore you with an anecdote.
More criticism for high-techy expectations
By Rob Hayesmore
I wonder if we are missing the point a bit here? Shouldn't IT education in schools be aimed at teaching pupils about the end-user element of IT rather than the techie element. What's going to be useful to 90 per cent of pupils is knowing how to use a mouse and a keyboard, how the popular applications work, what a spreadsheet is and what you can do with it.
From the education viewpoint having IT teachers that can maintain 300 user networks and could get jobs as experienced system administrators seems a bit unnecessary.
However that doesn't mean that schools and colleges don't need system's administrators, just that they're (possibly) not the best people to educate our children.
But where does all the money go Bill?
By Dominic Tristram
I'm guessing that the majority of the money spent on IT in schools goes to Microsoft for licences. It is wrong to use commercial software in schools instead of free open source software. Stop the nonsense spouted by Microsoft apologists and spend the money where it is actually useful - staff and hardware.
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