Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, announces today a consultation to scrap the ICT programme of study from September 2012.

e-skills UK, the Sector Skills Council for Business and IT, believes the announcement today is a vital and historic step towards creating a new approach to teaching IT in schools.

Karen Price OBE, CEO of e-skills UK said:

“The door is now wide open to create a new and relevant curriculum that will inspire students and ensure that the UK can retain its position at the forefront of technology.

IT drives productivity in every sector and is the engine for growth across the whole economy.  That is why we are working with leading employers through our Behind the Screen project to create a new GCSE in IT.”

The current pilot in 20 schools will help determine three critical aspects of the new GCSE.  First, the right balance of skills and knowledge; ensuring coding and computational principles, software development and logic skills are combined with creativity, design and teamwork.  Secondly, that a robust and rigorous assessment process is in place.  And finally, that resources to help teachers deliver the new qualification, and students achieve it, are comprehensive, inspiring, challenging, and based on real-world application. 

The intention is to create a qualification that students find stimulating, and that is at the same time highly regarded by universities and employers. The enthusiasm and commitment of employers, combined with the innovative real-world resources they are contributing, will help reverse the dramatic decline in the number of young people studying IT and considering careers in the sector.

IBM is one of the group of leading employers working with e-skills UK on Behind the Screen. Stephen Leonard, Chief Executive IBM UK and Ireland, said:

"We are long overdue a completely new approach to teaching IT as a subject. With our work, we will make IT inspiring to young people and put the UK on the world stage in educating the technologists of the future.

We are putting the weight of industry behind a transformation in education, working with schools and universities to create courses of academic substance and industry relevance.”

Other employers participating in Behind the Screen include Blitz Games, BT, Cisco, Microsoft, John Lewis Partnership, the BBC, SAS, Capgemini, Deloitte, Google, A1-Technologies, Storythings, BAFTA, Interactive Opportunities, Accenture, DXW, The Open Rights Group, Nokia and Autonomy.