Initiative to improve IT education in the UK launched at Bletchley Park

CONSERVATORS of the British World War II code breaking site, The Bletchley Park Trust has hosted an initiative to improve UK technology education.

Software development training and mentoring company Codemanship's Teacher-Practitioner Exchange pilot program will aim to connect teachers who want to learn how to write software with experienced volunteer software developers who can coach them.

It will start in late September and run until June 2012, after which talks may begin to scale it up under the auspices of Computing at Schools (CAS) and the British Computer Society (BCS).

The scheme comes after leading software development practitioners, employers and information technology teachers and technologists met at Bletchley Park, considered by many to be the birthplace of modern computing, to discuss where the next generation of computer programmers is going to come from.

A patron of the Bletchley Park Trust, Jason Gorman of Codemanship, was behind the summit, which is sponsored by Thoughtworks and the BBC Academy.

Gorman said, "The timing of the summit couldn't have been more perfect, with Google CEO Eric Schmidt raising the issue of programming in schools the next day in his MacTaggart lecture in Edinburgh. With greater media attention, and a weight of initiatives gathering momentum, many who attended the summit are feeling like a victory is now realistic, and closer than we thought.

"If groups like Computing At School and the Raspberry Pi Foundation have their way, those days could be back within a generation."

Simon Greenish, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust said, "Bletchley Park is where the modern world began. Seventy years on, it is only fitting that that the Bletchley Park Trust fully backs this renaissance in tech education to ensure that the tradition of British technological innovation continues by supporting future generations." µ