Scottish Examination Changes

Fiona Hislop, the Eduction Minister, announced major changes to the Scottish exam system.  Amongst other things she put forward the idea of a national certificate for literacy and numeracy.  I am reminded of the old O Grade Arithmetic exam.  The questions always tested the same basic skills, just the numbers changed.  I know that sounds a little simplistic but unlike some modern exams which seem to be designed to show candidates what they don’t know, this aimed to show them what they did know.

I remember some Computing Studies exams which were designed to catch out teachers who failed to cover every last detail of the syllabus and made only a passing nod to the essence of Computing.

It would be good if this new exam made certain that all candidates who passed had a set of basic skills which did not vary or dumb down from year to year.

Computing As Taught

Gordon McKinlays’ post about the teaching of Computing in Scottish schools very much endorses my feelings as an ex Computing PT. The subject has had a very mixed existence highlighted by the fact that the name kept changing from Computer Education to Computing Studies to Computing. In its very early days the programming element for an O grade certificate once included programming a BBC computer to display a simulated car dashboard with flashing indicators and a moving fuel gauge and speedometer if my memory is not exaggerating it. Nowadays programming hardly features in the curriculum. Partly I suspect the emphasis on word processing etc., came about through an ex Business Studies teacher being on the national subject panels.

Today, I think the only justification for Computing as a subject is teaching the analytical skills of programming and the fundamental structures of hardware and software, i.e Computing Science. This would be very much a minority subject and would free up the hundreds of computers in Computing rooms for more useful purposes as you need very little access to a computer to teach the subject in that form. Then they could be used across the curriculum to improve access to Glow.