What? Pre-GCSE students in the UK will be taught how to write software, in a trial aiming to transform IT education in schools, the Government has revealed.

So what? The decision follows years of criticism of the computer science curriculum. A report from Ofsted highlighted that the current IT curriculum was failing students by not making a clear distinction between the use of IT and IT as a career. Moreover, a Royal Society report last year found that school children found IT lessons boring, and that fewer children were taking IT at GCSE and A-level. This trend appears to be continuing, as this year's A-level results showed an eighth consecutive year of decline in the number of students taking computing.

UK science minister David Willetts commented:

"There's going to be a live pilot over two terms in schools of a programme that will transform the IT curriculum away from computer literacy, which we believe many young people can do earlier, towards instead how they develop software and computational principles; how they can create their own programmes."

The initiative will be launched at 20 schools in England in November and run until June 2012.

This is a vital step towards encouraging more schoolchildren to pursue careers in computing and helping keep the UK competitive in the technology market. Given the growth being experienced by the technology industry, this change could not come fast enough.

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