Professor of Software Technology Lee McCluskey on the announcement that a network of 400 “master” computer science teachers is being recruited to deliver a new computer science curriculum in schools across England.
Computer theory is now on the school curriculum – not a day too late!
“Consider the following two questions:
(i) What are the two elements that Salt are made up of?
(ii) What is the complexity class of the Travelling Salesman problem?
Answers: (i) sodium and chlorine (ii) NP-hard. You will of course get the first one right, as basic chemistry theory is taught widely, but most people will not even understand the second question because computing theory is not.
Recently the computing curriculum in Schools has been very technology-focussed, with an emphasis on the student learning basic IT skills. So people emerging from secondary schools may know how to use proprietary products such as Word and Excel, but not many will know a great deal about the science of computing. Many schools do not even teach the fundamental skill of creating algorithms to solve problems.
However, this is all set to change! After years of pressure from computing academics and industrialists alike, a Curriculum for Schools is being rolled out that will underpin the syllabus in schools. This has been endorsed by academics, and the likes of Google and Microsoft. With the new syllabus, the hope is that people emerging from schools should be able to better understand the science of computing as it develops in the future; they should be much more capable of succeeding in the Computing industry, and important for universities, they will be much better prepared to study for a University Degree in this area.”
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