Royal Society report on Computing in schools

Readers of this blog will be aware of the on-going discussions about Computing in schools. Co-incidentally to the Minister's announcement about the subject, the Royal Society recently produced a report about the issue.

Shut Down or Restart? [PDF] makes 11 recommendations about Computing in schools. Although the report focuses on England, most of the recommendations relate to the entire UK.

It makes interesting reading. Of particular interest is the criticism of "ICT" as a description of the subject, and a recommendation that it is divided into three distinct subject areas: "digital literacy", "Information Technology", and "Computer Science".

The report has potentialy important implications for awarding organisations (such as SQA). For example, one of the recommendations is that every awarding organisation in the UK reviews its portfolio of awards and clearly distinguishes each one using this classification.

SQA is actively considering the recommendations in the report. Look out for more reaction to this report in future blog posts.