Hardly any coders among GCSE ICT entrants despite student increase

This article outlines (one of) the biggest problems with schooling here in the UK - the source material for a Computing GCSE exists, but no schools are willing to pick it up, run with it and offer it to their students.

This isn't because there aren't enough kids interested, it's because very few schools offer the course.

So why aren't schools offering a Computing GCSE? My speculation is that it's still pretty new and the prospect of re-training teachers into being able to teach this stuff outweighs the number of kids that would pick the subject.

Right now, by not offering this in more of our schools, we are actively discouraging any kids who do have a genuine interest in development and design because we're locking them into learning how to make elements on powerpoint slides animate successfully, instead of the creative development encouragement they need, and, well, deserve.