MONITOR
EDUCATION
The Joint BCS & WCIT Oxford Union Style Debate
“This house believes that Academic Education will
never meet the skills needs of the IT Profession”
O
n an evening in June the Master of
WCIT and the President of BCS The
Chartered Institute for IT were
guests of honour at an Oxford Union style
debate jointly hosted and organised by the
WCIT’s Education and Training (E&T)
Committee and the BCS Learning and
Development (L&D) Specialist Group.
The venue for the debate was the wonderful
surroundings of Armourers’ Hall, a livery hall
fully equipped to settle debates of times past
in a more decisive manner!
The Master and BCS President were joined by
an audience of over 90 representatives of
leading universities and employers as well as
representatives from BCS, Intellect,
CEdMa (Computer Education Management
Association) and other stakeholders in the
debate.
The event was the culmination of eight
months of planning and built upon the
memorandum of understanding signed
between WCIT and BCS in 2011 to link our
E&T Committee and the volunteers on the
BCS L&D Specialist Group. We hope it will
be the first of much joint collaboration events
with BCS.
“Computing is now
recognised as the fourth
scientific discipline in
compulsory education”
Background to the debate
Much has been written in the IT and education
press about the state of computing and IT
education in schools, culminating in the
Secretary of State for Education announcing
that all teaching and assessment of ICT (better
described as IT literacy) would cease this
September. Subsequently WCIT responded to
a DfE consultation on the future direction of
IT and Computing education in schools and
the government appointed BCS and the Royal
Academy of Engineering to lead the proposal
for a new curriculum.
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Whilst there is still much to be done to
The results were as follows:
address the needs of IT and Computing in
Prior to Following
schools, the good ship of public education has
the
the
turned near full circle and Computing is now
recognised as the fourth scientific
debate
debate
discipline in compulsory education.
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Support 37
The joint BCS and WCIT Oxford Union style
debate moved the discussion forward to
examine the perceived disconnect between the
output of academia and the needs of
employers of IT skilled graduates.
Some employers expect universities to turn
out production ready IT practitioners who can
be billed to clients in their first week of
employment. Universities cannot keep up with
the rapid pace of change and diverse skills
needs of the Information Economy and would
be foolish to align with the short-term and
often faddy needs of employers. So what
is the answer?
Oppose
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Photos, video and the Book of the Night may
be accessed here:
http://www.bcs.org/content/
ConWebDoc/50013
Contributed by WCIT Liveryman
Paul D Jagger,
Secretary of the BCS Learning and
Development Specialist Group and a member
of WCIT Education and Training Committee.
About the Motion
The debate was founded on the motion that
academia will simply never satisfy the skills
needs of a profession as diverse and rapidly
changing as IT. This motion was supported
and opposed by debaters representing the
views of the industry and academia who
presented their arguments for and against.
For the full analysis please visit the
WCIT website at www.wcit.org.uk and
visit the news section.
The magnificent Armourers’ Hall