England: Time to replace Computer Science with Computing

This is policy wonk stuff, but I find policy fascinating. As a researcher, it’s hard to figure out “How are most people (students, faculty, whatever) in this field thinking about X?” Policy-makers have to figure that out, too, and then have to respond. A change in policy is like a research paper that says, “We found that the status quo wasn’t working anymore.”

The English government has just conducted an independent review of all their school curricula (see report here).  The review is critical of how Computer Science is working in English schools today. They say that Computing now pervades all disciplines and “digital literacy” should be taught in an integrated manner. I recommend reading the report — it’s accessible and covers a bunch of important issues, like who is taking CS and where there’s a split between policy and practice.

One of the explicit recommendations is that the government:

Replaces GCSE Computer Science with a Computing GCSE which reflects the full breadth of the Computing curriculum and supports students to develop the digital skills they need.

The government response (linked here) agrees:

We agree with the Review that the computing curriculum should be the main vehicle for teaching about digital literacy, and we are confident that delivering the computing recommendations will provide more pupils with valuable digital skills that are essential for the future.

It is also clear that, in some subjects, digital methods now influence the content and how it is taught. We will work with experts to assess the validity of digital practice in these subjects, the evidence of whether this can be done robustly and whether it merits inclusion in the new curriculum. Where it does, we will include a requirement for the relevant digital content in those subjects’ programmes of study and we will ensure that it aligns with the computing curriculum, to reduce the risk of duplication.

We will also replace the computer science GCSE with a broader offer that reflects the entirety of the computing curriculum whilst continuing to uphold the core principles of computer science such as programming and algorithms, and explore the development of a level 3 qualification in data science and AI.

Bottomline: CS just isn’t the thing anymore. Computing and computing across the curriculum is what is needed.

As a director of a Program in Computing for the Arts and Sciences, and someone who spent 25 years in a College of Computing, I wholly endorse this change and welcome it. As I described in a blog post from a couple of years back, “computer science” was originally invented to be a broad subject to be taught to everyone. Over the last 60 years, “computer science” has become more narrow (e.g., overly emphasizing algorithms while de-emphasizing building and creativity and social impacts, as Sue Sentance describes in this blog post, while “computing” represents a broader perspective. When we think about what should be taught to everyone in secondary school, Computing (and digital literacy, as the reports suggest) are more appropriate than what we now mean when we say Computer Science.