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In his announcement at BETT 2012, the education secretary, Mr Gove, effectively removed ICT as a subject from the curriculum of English schools to be replaced, in effect, by ‘Computing’. This announcement, and indeed during the months leading up to the announcement, has seen much debate and some degree of schism among educationalists, who have either been in favour of a move toward teaching computer science or who have been defensive of good ICT teaching where it has existed. Of course, other educationalists have been sat on the side bemused by the debate, feeling, perhaps, that it doesn’t affect them.
The reality is that the announcement does affect all of us in education, particularly if we wish to keep the good elements of ICT and promote best teaching of computing. This I feel is the challenge to us all as a result of Mr Gove’s announcement; how can we keep the good elements of ICT and implement effective teaching of computing plus, of course, how to keep both developing in the future.
This is unlikely to be brought about by pro and anti ICT teachers arguing with each other. It is surely time to come together and create something new. That ‘something’ needs to be not restricted to a new ‘subject’ teaching but to be more truly cross-curricular and bring non-ICT teachers into the debate.
