Statistics for 2nd level subjects - implications for Leaving Cert. Computer Science in Ireland

[John Hegarty]

Read an article today today that reported that only 30% of schools in England offer Computer Science as an option for students at 2nd level

https://computinged.wordpress.com/2017/07/12/concerns-about-computing-in-englands-schools-is-access-really-enough/

In fact the Roehampton report the article was based on said only 24% of schools offered Computer Science at A Level

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xf_L-jCIzYZmZDbFAzb3BPUEk/view

The gender stats make for pretty awful reading too.

I would hope we can do better than that in Ireland but I'm wondering what's the reality at the moment for other subjects.

I'm looking for statistics on the percentage of schools offering the various Leaving Cert. Subjects. There are stats here https://www.examinations.ie/?l=en&mc=st&sc=r16 for the levels of attainment by students in all subjects but I'm looking specifically for percentage of schools offering say Physics, French, History, etc. A breakdown of whether these schools are boys, girls or mixed would also be interesting. For example, are there many 2nd level schools not offering all three science subjects (Physics, Chemistry and Biology) these days? Anyone know if these stats are available somewhere.

The report mentioned above said only 28.5% of schools were offering computer science at GCSE level. It is still early days for the Junior Cert. Coding short course but will we be happy if only 30% of 2nd level schools have it as an available option for their students in the next few years? Am I right in saying we may already be moving past that percentage?

I expect it will take some years for CS to become a mainstream subject with statistics in line with other Leaving Cert. subjects but my initial reaction is I'd be disappointed if only 25-30% of schools were even offering the subject as an option. Am I being naive?

jh

[G P Ashe]

That data would be held in P-POD but whether there are any stats and whether these are publicly available is another matter...

You can work out what % of students do any subject (regardless of attainment) and the gender splits are on the SEC website...

-- gpa

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[Danny Murray]

That makes for an interesting read.

I was asked to teach GCSE coding while working in a Cambridge secondary school and so I might just add some anecdotes on this.

Basically what I want to say is that I wouldn't hold the UK education education system as a reference model we'd want to aspire to in it's current state. Great teachers trying too hard to make a broken system work. A lot of mainstream English schools would love to include CS but can't get anyone to teach it. 

Teaching as a profession in England can be an absolute nightmare and schools still struggle to attract teachers to STEM subjects because of the relatively toxic working conditions. Agencies still get paid by local schools to fly over Irish teachers to interview for Physics, Maths and Coding positions. I was asked to teach GCSE coding in a secondary school despite not being qualified to do so. Less pay, ridiculous working hours, Ofsted inspections, pointless paperwork, no guarantee of a pay rise each year and very challenging students would make anyone CS qualified get a programming job instead. Not to mention that national exams are run by private companies. This leads to a a race to the bottom as companies try get the easiest paper past the regulator. I remember teaching "21st Century Physics" from Sept-November and then the Ed Sec at the time Michael Gove decided overnight to downgrade that exam companies package for being too vocational. We had to tell students "So the life of a star, red dwarfs and all that? Forget it, that's not on the new syllabus we've been forced to switch to mid term. We're now months behind. In Ireland teachers would have been out in the streets if they didn't get two years notice to change the syllabus. Gove wanted to make a mark for himself before moving on. He retrospectively null and voided months of my student's work with zero notice. Surely there was uproar? Out of 100 teachers in that school, 3 showed up to the union meeting. In my wife's school, there were no union meetings. There were many young newly qualified teachers, a giant gap in the the middle and then another bulk of 55+ just trying to get to retirement.

Then there was the massive confusion when out ICT teachers were told their subject was being removed and replaced by CS. Our ICT teachers knew Excel but weren't coders. One went back into the industry and the other went into management. They did get a Physics teacher to teach python to a small group of male students using an online web platform but there wasn't any collaborative or social activities involved. He described it to me as easy to teach because the website tasks and corrects tasks so he just sits there supervising and doesn't really interact with them. I'm glad to see that what's coming in the Irish CS course looks very different and far more engaging. That teacher also left teaching the following year.

I'd be interested to see the if the figures are similar for other countries. Remember the gender difference between the UK and Israel in Neil and Clare's report was pretty substantial.

 

On 12 July 2017 at 21:42, John Hegarty <jheg...@cesi.ie> wrote:

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