IT, Google and UK plc

This April, Prism Total IT Solutions began delivering cheap, basic computers into British schools in an initiative which company co-founder Gary David Smith believes will help ameliorate the government’s failure to make basic computer literacy and coding part of the national curriculum. When Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, visited the UK last year, he said: “I was flabbergasted to learn that computer science isn’t even taught as a standard in UK schools. Your IT curriculum focuses on software but gives no insight into how it’s made. That is just throwing away your great computer heritage.” With a 57% drop in UK students gaining IT qualifications between 2005 and 2010, Smith and Schmidt may have a point.