Researchers discover GCSE ICT Lessons are boring (news at 11).

[Jiser]

Oh, and on a side note, for my GCSE ICT project I wrote some maths tuition software in VB complete with CHM help files. My mate designed a Wolves fan site in frontpage (using design mode of course). He got an A, I got a B.

My ICT teacher was actually a retired Science teacher who insisted on double clicking links in web pages.

Exactly!! Says it all just there.

[torledo]

when i was at school, ICT was effectively an add-on/module of business studies. With it being so biased toward spreadsheets and access today, it doesn't look like it's moved on from being an afterthought as it was years ago, except now to compound the misery for pupils it's a subject in its own right!!

btw, i'm not one of those who subscribes to the view that ICT must contain a programming strand, the 'use of' ICT actual runs through all curriculum subjects [or atleast it should do!!] which begs the question of whether ICT needs to exist as a dedicated subject ?

[LosOjos]

btw, i'm not one of those who subscribes to the view that ICT must contain a programming strand, the 'use of' ICT actual runs through all curriculum subjects [or atleast it should do!!] which begs the question of whether ICT needs to exist as a dedicated subject ?

I agree that in this day and age, the use of ICT should be a part of all subjects (word processing in English, spreadsheets in maths etc.) and that such basics should not be a qualification in their own right as most students these days will already know the basics of ICT. I do think ICT should remain as a seperate subject however, but should be optional and cover far more advanced topics than it does at the moment.

The ICT qualifications that kids leave high school with these days aren't worth the paper they're written on to anybody looking to work in ICT as a career, so what's the point?

[sonofsanta]

As others have touched on, the problem is that ICT curriculum just teaches the basics of computers which should really be core anyway. No matter what you do now you are going to use a computer - garage mechanics will use AutoData (or w/e it's called), tradesmen will need to use e-mail to get custom, even bin men will be dealing with the computer chips in bins soon. I'm not disparaging said professions, but they are not traditionally "computery" but are becoming so.

Once you free up ICT GCSE from the shackles of basic office stuff, you can stretch the kids who have a genuine interest in computers with GCSE Computer Science, then go through the solid foundation stuff such as databases (everyone has to suffer, sadly), algorithms, network topology and then use that basis to play with robots, code and making-that-computer-over-there-do-something-from-this-one-here (which still makes me giggle now, as an NM).

Anybody actually interested in computers already knows the very basic content of an ICT GCSE, so is bored, and those who aren't interested but take it as an option are left with the impression that it is all there is to computers.