I am the chief executive officer of Disruptive Developments Limited and co-founder of Coder Dojo. I am 19 years old and finished my leaving certificate in June last, so I have some first-hand and recent experience of the teaching of ICT in schools.
There is little if no education or exposure to computer science or coding in schools. It is not seen as cool and, if taught, it is usually done in a boring fashion. There is nothing to nurture interest and talent with little if any access to resources or information in schools. Poor career guidance on technology careers and skills is often given. Sometimes, it is not seen as viable career by parents with students, subsequently, pressured into safe careers such as law, medicine, engineering, which are now considered saturated areas. Teachers tend to be detached from school learning experience and cannot relate to young people trying to learn coding.
The industry complains about lack of graduates in coding and computer science. Ireland is a two-track economy with a booming technology scene with many vacancies, while high levels of unemployment and emigration persist. In January, when hiring two employees for my company I was forced to look in the United States and UK.
Coder Dojo is a global network of free computer clubs for young people in which people as young as seven come every Saturday, learn how to code, develop games and so forth, all for free. It was founded in June 2011 by Bill Liao and myself to tackle the poor state of technology for young people in Ireland and skills shortage in the Irish technology industry. Coder Dojo has seven clubs in Cork, Limerick, Kerry, Dublin, Drogheda, London and Paris, with more Dojos opening in Europe and America in these coming months. Coder Dojo currently has more than 150 children learning code along with more than 40 mentors with many more waiting for an opportunity to join. The Aran Islands is the latest area to request setting up a club.
From running Coder Dojo, we have identified several issues and resolutions to each. However, five minutes today is simply not sufficient time to explore each of these. We implore the foundation of a proactive sub-committee comprising education professionals, active coding and technology professionals to work with this area more in-depth. The group should examine actual implementation proposals, teaching methodologies and use of pre-existing resources.
How can one enhance the teaching of information and communications technology, ICT, at primary and secondary school level? Trips to companies such as Google, Facebook, etc, expose potential career paths and allow students to see the working environment. School trips are akin to those of going to the zoo. Coder Dojo organises sessions with introductions to coding, web design, and game development with departments in various colleges. Last week, for example, I met with the first-year co-ordinator of the business information systems course at University College Cork. It is trying to outreach to secondary schools but, unfortunately, there is no framework in place to support this.
Use of professionals in teaching in this area is important. Many teachers may have little experience in web design or coding, resulting in it not being taught efficiently and creating a bad experience. In Coder Dojo, all our mentors volunteer their time and often ICT professionals are happy to give their time to teach children. Guest speakers from various areas of the technology industry are more than happy to come to speak, for example, about what it is like to be a web designer or a system administrator. Of more importance are informed career guidance teachers. A career guidance teacher cannot currently differentiate a web developer from a desktop application developer or an iPhone developer. Information technology is such that, depending on what career one wants to follow, one's college course and knowing the different skills is incredibly important. This is something we need to tackle as well.
Moving on to coding in the second level curriculum, the implementation should be similar to that of music or art. I have been coding since I was nine years old. It is incredibly frustrating to see those who had done art and music for a similar amount of time being able to show off their skill set. Coding, in a way, is considered art and I did not have the same opportunity to be judged on it.
Ideally, the final examination should break down into two sections: a written test composing of various units on short questions on history, theory, practice, version control, systems, etc.; and a portfolio of various projects marked on design, user experience, features, source code. This is to accommodate the various coding languages. The portfolio should be marked by professionals according to industry standard. As technology is constantly advancing and changing, those who are actively working in this space should be judging it.
There should be open access to classes. We recognise that not all schools have the facilities to engineer this. However, in the same way that many courses, for example, in agricultural science, run grind schools, it means that it is open to other schools to provide after school tuition in this subject. Courses must be designed to accommodate technological changes. This is why we believe in having it open and that having a portfolio rather than a fixed syllabus would be better.
We must examine the teaching style of coding, that it must be contextual and fast paced and that students understand why they are doing a certain thing. In Coder Dojo, we have examined the teaching style of coding and have come up with a different style to that of traditional teaching which we have found to be quite effective, but it must be done to industry standard. If we want to make Ireland the Silicon Valley of Europe, as many are striving to achieve, we must have people coming out of the second and third level institutions with production level ability.
Discussion on this topic must take place for a longer duration and industry leaders and professionals should be involved. We implore the Government to strengthen and leverage its ties with technology companies here in Ireland during this process and to act quickly.