Finally, Britain’s children will be equipped for the Internet age. In a speech to the BETT education conference today, Michael Gove announced the details of the new computing curriculum, which will take effect from this September.
As well a new Computer Science GCSE and a beefed-up A-Level (hopefully more schools will offer it), the new computing curriculum will begin for five year olds, and will consist of three strands. These are information technology (how to use computers in the real world), ‘digital literacy’ (confidently and safely using computers) and ‘computer science’ strands.
The Computer Science strand is by far the most important. Since computers became significantly easier to use in the 1990s, Britain’s computing education has consisted of simply how to use the machines (in an age where watches and fridges can be considered a computer) with no understanding of how they work.
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