Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates, discusses how the current computing GCSE syllabus is not addressing the gender imbalance.
The UK economy will live and die on the depth of digital skills within its workforce.
Recognising this, the UK government created the new Computing GCSE in 2014 to instill digital skills in the next generation.
This new syllabus aims to introduce teenagers to concepts such as coding and programming, and the content was welcomed by industry experts at first glance.
Yet, there is still much work to be done in order to convert a well-drafted course into a generation of technically literate teens and coders.
Not tackling gender inequality
While the new GCSE syllabus should reproduce the quality we have in our current tech sector, we should be careful not to reproduce problems that we are working hard to address. At the top of this list is a lack of diversity, and with just 16% of those taking the qualification being female, we are in danger of entrenching rather than improving a lack of gender diversity....