Compulsory coding in schools: The new Nerd Tourism

I don't agree with a lot of what Orlowski says, and this article is no exception.

The UK secondary education system used to be divided into two stages when I went to school. The first 3 years are involved in trying lots of things, specialising in the final two years on what interests you. Andrew's point is that Computing is not relevant enough to be in that list whereas "ICT" is.

Crikey, what is he smoking? In the modern world with prevalence of computing as a hot career option and the acute shortage of skilled people we have at the moment what does computing have to do to get relevant? ICT is nothing more than what they used to call "typing" which is a valuable skill, but not something that you need to study for years and years.

@skelband like you Im also a product of the Scottish secondary system of the mid to late 70's very similar to English system here is what i did for

1st to 4th year O - Grade Level English, Arithmetic, Maths, Geography, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geology

5th & 6th year Higher Level (Scottish equivalent of A - Grade) English, Maths, Biology, Physics

I failed Higher English & Geography, so not only do i not know where I am I probably couldn't spell it anyway :)

If computing courses had existed then I would of taken them as well and dropped Geography like a hot potato.

Didn't stop me though still ended up as a coder for most of my adult life

The system is all changed now and not for the better in my opinion which is a shame as i thought it was a pretty good system overall with room for improvement but no, they had to ditch it completely, sometimes so called progress is just wrong.