Eric Schmidt criticises education in the UK

<i>He said he had been flabbergasted to learn that computer science was not taught as standard in UK schools, despite what he called the "fabulous initiative" in the 1980s when the BBC not only broadcast programmes for children about coding, but shipped over a million BBC Micro computers into schools and homes.</i><p>It really was a fabulous initiative. I'm not exaggerating when I say pretty much everyone in my classes when I was around the age of 11 or 12 knew at least <i>some</i> BASIC or LOGO programming (though nobody really thought of LOGO as a programming language - it was sneaky that way!).<p>I am sad to see nothing like that initiative in place today.

A couple of quotes from comments on the Guardian's version of the story:<p>"<i>There is no need to teach people in the UK how to be a computer programmer because the work can either be shipped out to India or companies can employ people from India to work in their IT companies in the UK.</i>"<p>Which is bad enough, but this one really takes the biscuit for me:<p>"<i>How can this be true when our exam pass-[rate has been climbing for yonks? The guy's obviously talking crap. What would hr know about education? We should listen to our teachers and ignore capitalists like this.</i>"<p>Wow.

I haven't had an average education, but even other, much lower, poorer schools in my area still did IT early. Microsoft Research is in Cambridge, I'd say more but I'm annoyed at Schmidt for clearly not looking at it. I've never seen a BBC Micro, but I've seen all sorts of people, even ones who are sure their success is somewhere else, be engaged by IT (if only to get round the filters, which still counts).

It really is true. From my time in the British education system, I can honestly say there have only been very few instances where a teacher inspired me and ignited my interest. This shouldn't be the case. Every teacher should do that.<p>Most teachers, however, are only interested in one thing: passing tests. The goal of what they teach is not to build a foundation for future education, that's only really secondary. The primary goal is to pass what ever test it is that you must take at the end of the year. After all, the test tests the foundation right? <i>sigh</i><p>The reason why teachers do this is simple really. If kids don't pass tests, they get fired. It's a constant fear. So teachers in the UK have been boiled down to "These kids must pass the test or I will get fired".<p>I.T was especially bad. I don't even think the teachers were THAT competent on a computer. In one class, I remember suggesting encryption as a way to secure your computer and the teacher told the class the rest of the class encryption was password masking (where your characters are hidden by asterisks). The only programming I ever did was in my own time or maybe some horrendous chain of conditionals in Excel in said IT class. Computing only becomes available when you reach college and even then it's an option which most people don't take.<p>To be fairly honest with you, I only knew about programming because of my mother, who took a course on BASIC in the 80s. In my 13 years of compulsory British education I never really heard about computer programming.<p>The problem is that it'd be quite difficult and wrong to expose children to programming in education with the current mentality. Can you really imagine what it'd be like if children were taught how to code just to pass a test? No I think that wouldn't do any good. The deeper issues in education would do well to be fixed first, namely igniting interest and not hammering a bunch of facts into memory.

I was 16 when they stopped Computing at A-Level. This was in 1998. Students before complained A Level material was duplicated in their first year at Uni, apparently.<p>Now I.T. is basically vaguely proficient use of MS Office. That, and a vague understanding of TCP/IP, or was when I was 17 at least.<p>I can understand I.T. will be more useful to 14-16 year olds. But at A-Level--where they choose what to learn--to only have proficient use of MS Office, a small bit of theory, and an optional bit of Visual Basic, is ridiculous.<p>In India C++ is mandatory to all at a certain age. I even know an accountant who was forced to learn it. I would rather be in that situation than "Oh, you've done an A-Level in IT? Great. Then you can make me an Excel spreadsheet."<p>(As an aside, to assess my A-Level I.T. teacher: he told me C was the first version, C++ was the next version, and by now there'd be a C+++.)

Someone said somewhere that most people are over-educated. How much education do you need to work checkout in Tesco? To listen to some, British education has been a mess since the 60's (apostrophe?) Despite that, Britain still muddles along nearish to the top of the wealth league. The kids are spending all their time on playboy (as my dad refers to games consoles) but maybe that will yet somehow be a blessing cos they'll all have exactly the skills needed in the future when human and computer work as one! Till the day I die, I expect education and the NHS to be in a 'state of crisis'

And? Perhaps it is not the life goal of the majority of people to push advertisements to their fellow human beings.<p>If the criticism came from Knuth - fine - but Eric Schmidt? Who is he to make such a remark?