From IT to Computer Science: Success or Failure?

I'm a computer science teacher. But I didn't start out that way. I began my career teaching ICT (Information and Communication Technology). Practical skills. Real-world applications. Digital literacy for everyone. I watched that subject disappear, or some say transform, to meet global competition in digital skills and tech dominance. Nearly 20 years later, I'm still here. Still teaching. And I'm trying to understand: Did it work? It's a more complicated question than it seems. Because the data tells a confusing story:

Based on my research, success can be described as follows, according to reports and media headlines:

• GCSE Computer Science grew from a tiny pilot to ~80,000 students

• Computational thinking is now taught from age 5

• Digital infrastructure improved dramatically

• The UK led a global movement
  
  

Based on my research, failure can be described as follows, according to reports and media headlines:

• Overall computing participation dropped by 144,000 qualifications

• Female participation fell from 69% to 17%

• Teacher recruitment targets missed every year

• One in three schools don't offer the subject

• £63 billion annual economic cost from digital skills gaps
  
  

So which is it?

Over the past decade, we seen huge investment in the new computer science curriculum:

• £84 million for the National Centre for Computing Education

• Additional millions in teacher bursaries (£24,000 per trainee)

• Industry contributions from Google (£1m), BT, Rolls-Royce, ARM, Microsoft and etc

• Hundreds of millions more on infrastructure, hardware, T-Levels, and implementation

• 1 million free micro:bits to every Year 7 student

• Partnerships with the world's biggest tech companies
  
  

I believe these investments had real intention and a clear vision. We wanted to transform Britain into a nation of tech innovators—digitally competent, not just consumers. The goal was to give every child computational thinking skills and prepare students for the jobs that don't exist.

The results are... contested.

After living through this evolution, watching colleagues leave the profession, seeing students struggle, and facing constantly changing curricula and directions, many teachers say, "Well, it works in my subject; why can’t it work in yours?" I usually respond that they have more teaching hours and time to deliver complex topics. Ask any industry professional if being given 45 minutes a day to learn something and then expected to master it is realistic. So, are we asking the wrong question when we talk about how effective it has been?

Are we asking the right question? How does rolling out a new technical subject impact the current system, or should we have merged both curricula and then refined the curriculum as new requirements emerged? And what do you do when the evidence suggests you didn't? I'm going to show you what happened, present the evidence from all sides, and let you decide. This is not to assign blame. But to learn. Before we make the same mistakes with AI. Let me take you back to where it all began for me. Back to the 1990s, when it was just called IT and nobody knew we were about to start a revolution...

The 1990s: The subject IT was Simple and Functional
In the mid-1990s, when I was at school, the subject was called IT (Information Technology). The approach was straightforward:

• How to use a computer

• Basic word processing and spreadsheets

• Understanding what computers could do

• File management

• Printing documents
  
  

The philosophy: Technology as a practical tool for work and life.

Students left school with functional skills able to type a document, create a spreadsheet, save files, and navigate software. These skills were crucial for further education, work, and everyday life. I believe this was a golden generation of digital skills.......we were learning essential life skills! While these skills may not have been academically rigorous or tailored for computer science careers, they provided students with the essential competencies needed for an increasingly digital workplace."

2000: The Birth of ICT in the National Curriculum

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) represented an evolution. The "Communication" element recognised that computers were no longer just processing tools, they were enabling global connection and collaboration. The excitement of having access to the internet as a resource was immense.

What ICT Taught: Key Stage 3
(Ages 11-14)
The curriculum focused on practical digital skills:

• Information Management

  • Using search engines effectively

  • Evaluating digital sources

  • Understanding information structures
    

• Content Creation:

  • Word processing (formatting, styles, templates)

  • Spreadsheets (formulas, charts, data analysis)

  • Databases (queries, forms, reports)

  • Presentations

  • Desktop publishing
    

• Digital Media:

  • Photo editing

  • Video editing

  • Basic web design

  • Sound manipulation
    

• Communication Skills:

  • Professional email etiquette

  • Understanding audiences

  • Digital safety
    

• Touch Typing:

  • Many schools dedicated time to teaching proper keyboard skills—building fluency that removed technical barriers to expressing ideas.
    
    

GCSE ICT at Key Stage 4
Students could take GCSE ICT, which emphasised applied learning:

• Creating database systems for business scenarios

• Developing marketing materials

• Building multimedia presentations

• Working to specifications

• Documentation and evaluation
  
  

The assessment was coursework-heavy, with students completing substantial projects demonstrating practical application of ICT skills.

The GNVQ and DiDA Era:
When League Tables Drove Decisions, during the 2000s, vocational qualifications created opportunities and problems.

DiDA (Diploma in Digital Applications)
DiDA launched in 2005 as GNVQ's replacement, offering modular qualifications in:

• Using ICT

• Multimedia creation

• Graphics and imaging

• Business applications

• Game authoring
  
  

Entirely coursework-based, completed on computers. Students produced genuine work, videos, graphics, websites. However, Ofsted and the Wolf Report questioned whether these qualifications were being used primarily for educational purposes or league table improvement.

GNVQs (General National Vocational Qualifications)
Intermediate GNVQ in ICT was equivalent to four GCSEs at grades A*-C, making it attractive for league table purposes. The content included:

• Multimedia design

• Business applications

• Website development

• Digital media production
  

Schools exploited the equivalency for league table advantage, with some making substantial income from selling courses. This created a credibility problem that would later fuel arguments for fundamental reform. For me this is where i believe the real issues arise because these skills were valuable even into todays world.


2010-2012: Parallel Developments

In 2010, OCR piloted a GCSE in Computing. The first students were awarded GCSE Computer Science in 2012.This qualification focused on:

• Programming (Python, Visual Basic)

• Algorithms and computational thinking

• Computer architecture

• Data representation

• Systems analysis
  
  

Entry numbers were small—a specialist subject for motivated students.

January 2012: The Reform Announcement
In January 2012, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced plans to scrap the ICT curriculum, describing it as "harmful, boring and irrelevant". His vision: "Instead of children bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word and Excel by bored teachers, we could have 11-year-olds able to write simple 2D computer animations using Scratch".

The argument had merit:

• ICT had credibility problems due to GNVQ/DiDA gaming

• Students needed more than application skills

• Computational thinking was valuable

• The tech industry needed skilled workers
  
  

In February 2013, Professor Peter Twining (Open University) cautioned: "Most workers do not need to be able to program computers. They don't even need to have a deep understanding of how computers work. However, all members of our society need to be 'digitally competent', something that appears to be a minor consideration in this computing programme of study". Bob Harrison, who chaired the DfE's advisory group on computing, later described it as a situation that "was entirely predictable, was predicted".

So the warnings existed. Whether they were adequately considered is debatable.

2014: The Computing Curriculum Launches: September 2014: A New Era Begins
In September 2014, ICT was replaced by Computing in the national curriculum, introducing programming, data structures, algorithms, and computer science concepts from age 5 onwards.

The curriculum shift: From ICT to Computing:

• Using applications → Understanding how they work

• Practical skills → Computational thinking

• Application-focused → Computer science foundations

• Digital literacy → Programming and algorithms
  

New content included:

• Programming languages (Python, Scratch)

• Algorithms and data structures

• Boolean logic

• Computer architecture (CPU, fetch-decode-execute)

• Binary and hexadecimal

• Networking protocols

• Sorting and searching algorithms
  
  

This was part of a global trend, with the UK leading, followed by Australia (2015), Finland (2014), and 18 other European countries by 2016. However, Immediate Implementation challenges started to arise, teachers reported feeling uncomfortable with the new material, regarding it as "an exceptionally difficult subject to teach and learn". I can remember spending 50 Hours at University learning from academics about Data structures and Networks etc

Why the difficulty? Well most ICT teachers had no computer science qualifications or experience. Many were teachers from other subjects who'd taken on ICT, or had been teaching applications for years. By 2015 just one year after implementation surveys found 31% of primary teachers lacked confidence teaching coding, 42% said they didn't have adequate training, and 30% lacked appropriate equipment. I can remember travelling around the country attending #TEACHMEETs to top up my skills and meet other professionals.

"Teach Meet" is an informal, often grassroots event where educators come together to share ideas, experiences, and best practices in teaching. It usually involves short, informal presentations or demonstrations by teachers, fostering collaboration and professional development in a relaxed environment. Teach Meets can focus on specific subjects, teaching methods, or educational technology."

The Massive Investment Response
Recognising the challenges, government and industry responded:

Financial Investment:

• £84 million for the NCCE to train 8,000 teachers

• Additional funding from BT, Rolls-Royce, and ARM

• Google contributed £1 million

• £2.4 million pilot program to address gender imbalance (2018)
  

Hardware:

• 1 million BBC micro:bits distributed free to Year 7 students

• 29 tech partners collaborated on development

• Raspberry Pi computers in schools

• Block-based coding platforms

Training Infrastructure:

• Network of 40 Computing Hubs

• Free CPD courses

• £24,000 training bursaries

• Online resources and lesson plans
  
  

Officials called it "unprecedented anywhere in the world for teacher training in computing and computer science".

The EdTech Transformation: Cloud Replaces VLEs: Simultaneously, the technology infrastructure evolved:

The Platform Shift:

• Clunky, expensive VLEs like Fronter declined

• Google Classroom (launched 2014) offered free, cloud-based alternative

• Microsoft responded with Office 365 Education and OneNote Class Notebooks

• Real-time collaboration became seamless

• Access from any device, anywhere
  
  

This was genuinely transformative. The cloud infrastructure worked better than anything schools had previously used, and it was free.

The Certification Programs
Tech companies created educator certification programs:

• Google Certified Educator (Levels 1 & 2)

• Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert

• Apple Distinguished Educator

• Adobe Education Expert
  
  

Teachers invested time earning these credentials, demonstrating expertise with modern tools and innovative pedagogical practices. Not to brag, but I believe I was among the few teachers worldwide to achieve all these certifications and could show how these tools enhanced teaching and learning. My advantage was helping young people be creative with tech tools that inspired them. I created an ecosystem of entertainment and role modeling, helping students dream and believe in themselves while tackling difficult topics. However, I would argue that the Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) program should have remained for computer science, because unlike edtech certifications, AST focused on pedagogy, knowledge exchange, and role modeling not just proficiency with tools.

Also shese certifications made teachers highly marketable to the companies that issued them. New Tools Proliferated;

• Kahoot! transformed classroom engagement

• Scratch became standard for primary coding

• Showmyhomework because a digital tool for homework

• Code.org provided free programming courses

• Countless other platforms emerged

Resources were abundant, the question was whether having more tools equaled better outcomes. The Data Begins Telling a Different Story

The Time Paradox
Despite the curriculum becoming more demanding, teaching time at Key Stage 3 dropped from 60 minutes per week in 2012 to 45 minutes in 2017. At Key Stage 4, computing teaching hours fell by 31,000 per week! a 47% decrease. Overall, computing/ICT teaching hours in secondary schools dropped 36% from 2012 to 2017.As Head of Department, I found it very challenging to help students retain complex information for even a week, let alone for end-of-year exams. The time available for information to truly sink in was extremely limited.

More difficult curriculum + less teaching time = challenges.

The Royal Society noted that 1 hour per week "was not adequate to teach the key stage 3 curriculum", yet schools were providing less. Between 2017 and 2018 we started to see an exodus, the total number of computing/ICT qualifications taken by Year 11 students decreased by 144,000 a 45% drop. How could this happen when Computer Science entries were growing? GCSE Computer Science numbers increased, but not enough to offset the loss of GCSE ICT and other computing qualifications being withdrawn. Peter Kemp a friend of mine from Roehampton University observed: "Young people are now less likely to access any computing education than they were before computer science was introduced".

Before the 2014 reform, 69% of female students and 72% of male students took a computing-related exam at GCSE level. By 2020, this dropped to 17% of female students and 39% of male students. By 2016, just 16% of GCSE computing students were girls. At A-level: 8.5%. Notably, 19% of girls' comprehensive schools that offered GCSE CS in 2017 dropped it by 2018, compared to only 1% of boys' schools.

Multiple explanations exist:

• Research suggests girls showed more interest in subjects resembling the old ICT curriculum—digital media, project work, presentations

• Over a quarter of surveyed girls said the subject was boring, nearly a fifth said they lacked interest

• Stereotypes about tech careers may deter participation

• The theoretical focus may appeal less to some students
  
  

For context: ICT had 35% female participation at A-level, which also represented a gender gap, but significantly smaller than the 15% in Computer Science.

Despite unprecedented investment, another issue started to emerge, computing teacher recruitment to initial teacher training has fallen short of targets every year, achieving under 75% of goals. The 2021/22 target was 840 trainees, this was missed, as in each previous recruitment cycle. One education professor explained: "People who understand computer science have opportunities to be far better paid, either in companies or even in universities, which puts public schools at a severe disadvantage". Data shows average ICT teacher salary in Further Education was £32,400, while average ICT graduate starting salary was £34,700. In 2017, computing teaching was added to the official "shortage occupation list".

Contributing factors:

• Competitive tech industry salaries

• International schools recruiting UK teachers

• EdTech companies hiring educators

• Teacher certifications (Google, Microsoft) creating alternative career paths

• Challenging working conditions
  

British International Schools alone needed 18,000 teachers over the following decade, actively recruiting from UK schools.

The Assessment Crisis of 2017-2018
Reformed GCSE Computer Science (first teaching 2016) was assessed through 80% written examinations and 20% Non-Examination Assessment. A 20-hour programming project under controlled conditions. The NEA was designed to assess practical programming skills.

In 2017, tasks and solutions began appearing on online forums, viewed thousands of times. For one exam board, malpractice concerns involved around 10% of schools. Ofqual reported that "a simple search for a key requirement of a task on one popular forum brought up more than 40 pages of results". Plagiarism in computing accounted for 86% of all student plagiarism penalties across all subjects.

The challenge: How to maintain controlled assessment integrity when solutions were readily available online? Some forum posts appeared to be from teachers seeking guidance on the confidential tasks, highlighting how isolated teachers felt without being able to discuss the assessments with colleagues.

The Solution: Remove Practical Assessment! In January 2018, Ofqual decided the practical assessment would no longer contribute to grades. Students would still complete the 20-hour project, but it wouldn't count toward their final mark. The qualification became 100% theoretical for a subject that is fundamentally practical.

Teacher and student reactions were mixed:

• Relief that malpractice pressure was removed

• Concern that students who had invested effort would feel demotivated

• Frustration that programming ability wasn't directly assessed

• Questions about whether written exams could fairly measure practical skills
  
  

Analysis by BCS and Ofqual showed students typically achieved a grade lower in Computer Science compared to their Maths or Science results. Roehampton research found students typically got half a grade lower in CS than their other subjects at GCSE.

Possible explanations:

• Subject content is genuinely more challenging

• Students less prepared for this type of thinking

• Time as mentioned before

• Teaching quality varies due to teacher shortage

• Assessment is stricter

• Student cohort self-selection factors
  
  

BCS noted in 2021 this "leaves computing teachers with a huge struggle to persuade their senior leaders to resource GCSE Computer Science, and their students to take it". By 2024, even BCS acknowledged: "The current GCSE in Computer Science is theoretical and demanding, emphasising recall of knowledge rather than application".

Roehampton research characterised the typical CS student as "academically strong, mathematically able, likely to be taking triple science, and overwhelmingly likely to be male". Pupil premium students were under-represented at 19%, compared to 26.6% across all GCSE entries. Only 5.5% of GCSE students and 1.7% of A-level candidates took computing qualifications.

Interpretation varies:

• One view: This shows CS appeals to specific students with particular strengths

• Alternative view: This represents a narrowing from ICT's broader appeal

• Evidence: Researcher noted "the social demographic makeup of computer science is a lot more exclusive" than ICT was
  
  

By 2023, roughly one in three secondary schools didn't offer GCSE Computer Science. At A-level, approximately two in five students weren't offered the option to study it. In 2015, only 28.5% of schools entered pupils for GCSE computing, with significant regional variation.

Possible factors:

• Small class sizes (average A-level class: 7 students) raising questions about "economic viability"

• Teacher recruitment difficulties

• Student demand insufficient

• Teaching Time limited

• Resource constraints

• Other EBacc sciences easier to deliver
  

8.2% of schools that offered GCSE CS in 2017 weren't offering it in 2018, though overall provider numbers increased as new schools took it up. The Royal Society has published three major reports tracking computing education:

• 2012: "Shut Down or Restart?"
  Called for computer science in schools, helped drive the reform.

• 2017: "After the Reboot"
  Found computing provision "patchy and fragile" with concerns about teacher recruitment, workforce issues, and implementation readiness.

• 2024/2025: "System Upgrade Required"
  Concluded "despite past progress, computing education needs to change" and identified significant barriers to participation.
  
  

The trajectory suggests ongoing challenges that substantial investment hasn't fully resolved. A 2019 ethnographic study found "teachers were acting as gatekeepers to their respective classrooms, modifying or outright reject parts of England's national curriculum computing standards by minimising or ignoring subject content that they saw as redundant or less than critical to their students' success, or that they felt themselves not to have the training, experience, resources or time necessary to teach". Teachers reported being most confident with "elements inherited from the previous ICT courses" like using technology safely and creating digital content.

Current State:

Recent research highlights an emerging issue........Studies show college students struggling with basic tasks like understanding file directories, navigating cloud storage versus local storage, and formatting documents. Despite spending nearly 7 hours daily online, only 2% of students score at the highest level of computer and information literacy. Research explicitly states: "people who are deemed to be 'digital natives' do not necessarily possess digital skills". The assumption that students would naturally acquire digital literacy skills has been questioned. Research suggests the 2014 shift led to reduced time spent on basic digital skills and literacy that students need for later life.

The Economic Dimension

The digital skills gap currently costs the UK economy £63 billion annually in lost potential GDP. By 2030, this could rise to £166 billion per year. WorldSkills UK reports only 48% of employers believe young people leave education with sufficient advanced digital skills, and 76% of businesses say lack of digital skills would affect profitability. Digital skills shortages are most acute in the ICT sector (61%), financial services (25%), and business sector (21%). However, these are general digital skills gaps, not solely attributable to the computing curriculum. Multiple factors contribute including:

• Rapid technological change

• Employer training provision

• Higher education pathways

• Workplace skill development
  
  

The extent to which the school curriculum contributes to or alleviates these gaps is debated.

The rise of Ai:

• Over 60% of UK teachers feel unprepared to discuss or integrate AI, while over 80% of secondary students have used AI tools

• Some "early adopter" schools experimenting with AI for personalization and support

• £4 million government investment in developing AI tools for education

• No mandatory AI curriculum yet
  
  

The question remains: Are we better prepared for AI integration now than we were for computing in 2014?

As AI transforms technology once again, we face similar decisions. Will we learn from the past decade, or repeat the same patterns?

As you can see, I’ve covered a wide range of topics in this piece, but I hope it has been informative and has provided a clear timeline of what I’ve experienced over the past two decades.