Communications of the ACM
.K. Students Not Lining p to Study IT
Credit: The University of Melbourne
Only 3,420 British students, or 0.4 percent, took a computer science A-level — similar to a high school diploma in the United States — in 2011-2012, according to the U.K. Department of Education. The figure is down from a peak of 12,529 in 1998. And only 7 percent — 255 — of computing A-level students were female. London would like to challenge Silicon Valley in the future, but had only 376 students registered for A-level in computer science, and only 33 students were selected from the six central London boroughs that make up the Greater London Authority to study computing at a pre-college level.
"The statistics show the sheer scale of the challenge in front of us to get programming back in schools," warns Ian Livingstone, who chairs the Next Gen Skills campaign. "Whether it's making games, fighting cybercrime, or designing the next jet propulsion engine, computer science is at the heart of everything in the digital world."
However, Livingstone says the data illustrates that "English schools are failing to produce students in enough numbers to fill the needs of high tech and creative businesses."
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