GCSE results for 2008 show uptake for the IT GCSE is in steady
decline. Some 85,599 UK students sat the exam this year, compared
with 99,656 in 2007.
Uptake in 2007 had already fallen from the previous year, with
109,601 students taking an IT GCSE in 2006. Around 25 per cent of
students got a grade D in 2008 making it the most commonly awarded
grade for the second year running.
Rob Chapman, CEO of IT training company
Firebrand,
believes there needs to be a shift in the way a career IT is
perceived. "When you look at the skills gap and how IT is paid you
would think students would realise that studying IT means they are
likely to get a job and are likely to be paid well. There's also
this perception that IT workers are fat, smelly, hairy, and wear
sandals. People don't seem to realise that developing applications
for Facebook is a job in IT."
Chapman believes the lack of students engaged in IT could have
an impact on UK businesses. "If this leads to a skills shortage
there will either be an increase in the wages paid to IT workers or
offshoring."
Skills shortage looms as student numbers drop >>
Global skills shortage continues to drive up IT salaries
>>