IT Key Skills

Last week saw a very interesting discussion at the Curriculum Managers meeting about the place of IT within the curriculum and what particular skills employers want from young people. Within the group of colleagues who discussed this there was a divergence of views, which could summarised in these three positions. Position One, we should specifiy a specific qualification which everyone should seek to attain before they leave college. Position Two, young people know more about IT than we do and in the future we won't need to teach them IT. Position Three, the best way to teach IT, just like any key other skillm is to integrate it within the student's main programme of study.

In having this discussion, one of the many unknows which we discussed was 'what IT skills do employers want new entrants to the workforce to have, and did this vary from one employer group to another. I think it would be fair to say there was a divergence of views on this one, and we may need to wait until the Employers Survey is published before we get any kind of answer on this one.

If you are interested in contributing to this debate, please contact either Fina Jones, Peter Bolam or myself.

Regards

Gary

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi I tend to agree with position 3 as anything learnt within the main programme context tends to have more relevance to the student and can be set, if necessary, in an industrial context. This also applies to numeracy and literacy ( Specific help may be required in some cases where students have learning difficulties ). CAD for instance comes in many forms and in general it seems best to leave this learning to the employer who will have a specific package.