Again and again I see on the news political pundits and political leaders sprouting on about how the youngsters in school should be taught skills. Yes they should but the skills they are wanting to be taught are not the ones the real world needs. We are in a digital age, we have been for a number of years now. People need to be taught that. Physical goods are not manufactured in rich countries, we have to come to terms with that, the digital economy needs programmers, designers, people who know the technology.

We don’t teach that, we don’t have teachers that know how to teach that. We need a fundamental shift in the way education works. For instance, the classroom itself is old and tired, we need the digital age to come to that too. Why are kids going to school? In the age when most kids have mobile phones, laptops etc, why are they not using those for school work.  I know not everyone can afford them, but come on, if we can bail out rich bankers we can afford to give our kids a digital education, give them the tech they need to get on in the new age.

When I was learning computer science in the 80′s it was always the maths teacher that got the CS class. The teachers at my daughters school are no more advanced than they were when I was at school. That is shocking. Its been 30 years! 30 years! They could not improve the way they taught about technology in 30 years? Its a disgrace, and now our kids will fall behind countries like China and India, simply because a bunch of useless manufacturing skills that were out of date 30 years ago, are what our political classes think will help our kids get on in the future. Its just pathetic.