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Solving the mystery of the missing Computer Science specialists

By Jasper Common posted 05-07-2023 09:07

  

Jasper Common and Dan Pledger - from STEM Learning's Monitoring & Evaluation Team - investigate the shortage of specialist Computer Science teachers...

In our previous blog exploring the prevalence of specialist teachers, we found that access to a teacher who is a physics specialist (using the Department for Education definition - somebody who has a relevant post-18 qualification in the subject) is by no means guaranteed. While employing a specialist is not the only way to ensure a teacher has strong subject knowledge and skills, a teacher's degree is the closest measure of subject knowledge held in the School Workforce Census. Northern areas of England seem to face more difficulty securing access to physics specialists, but physics isn't the only STEM subject with difficulties attracting and retaining teachers.

In 2021/22, only 66% of the initial teacher training target for Computing was met. Due to an increased target and a fall in applicants, only 30% of the target was achieved in 2022/23. Retention is similarly challenging: in 2020, 8.1% of Computer Science teachers left the profession. This proportion of leavers is similar to that seen in other STEM subjects but is higher than other core subjects such as English. 

These difficulties likely contribute to the low proportion of computing hours taught by teachers with a relevant post-A level qualification - in 2022/23, it was only 54%; higher only than engineering and media. Digital skills are only becoming more important in our increasingly technological world, and more students are choosing to study Computer Science qualifications, so it’s imperative that students are supported to develop those crucial skills by teachers with strong subject knowledge and skills. Keeping in mind that employing a specialist is one guaranteed way to ensure access to that strong subject knowledge and skills - although not the only way - we used the School Workforce Census to look at which local authority districts have a higher proportion of Computer Science specialists.

Figure 1 shows the proportion of secondary schools in each local authority district (LAD) that employ a Computer Science specialist.

Missing values represent cases of suppression – where there were too few schools with Computer Science specialists within that LAD. As seen by the generous amount of grey on the map, the rate of suppression is high: 41% of LADs were suppressed, compared to only 17% of LADs when we looked at physics specialism. All state maintained secondary schools are required to teach computing to Key Stage 4, as with physics - although this doesn’t mean they offer Computer Science GCSE - so this pattern may not be down to demand alone.

Figures 2 and 3 explore whether there is any regional pattern among the LADs which were not suppressed. In Figure 2, LADs have been placed into one of four evenly sized quartiles based on the proportion of schools with a Computer Science specialist. There are many dark red areas – those with the lowest proportions – in the South West, but also the Midlands and North West.

Figure 3 shows the distributions of the LADs in each region. There doesn’t appear to be a clear pattern like the north-south trend seen in the previous blog, although it could be that an existing geographical trend is hidden by suppression.

The main conclusion is how few Computer Science specialists there are, as seen by the high rates of suppression. This is likely not news to many; The Royal Society found that only 46% of computing teachers had a computing qualification.

Ofsted’s research into computing in 2022 found that, in 2018 and 2019, just under half of computing hours in secondary schools were taught by specialists; they warned that the shortage of computing teachers would impact students’ quality of education.

The fundamental importance of computing knowledge and skills for young people and their futures, coupled with the recruitment and retention challenges faced by the sector, means innovative solutions are required. We should recognise that successful and effective teaching does not require a post-18 qualification, and that there are numerous factors beyond subject knowledge that make teaching effective - such as pedagogy, confidence, adaptability and many more. We should also make use of the current workforce to best support young people, such as by encouraging collaboration to share knowledge and best practice, or partnering with HEIs, training providers or businesses who could offer subject expertise and bring computing to life.

Computing and Computer Science should and will continue to grow in schools, but with a workforce that already seems over capacity, we need to act now to ensure young people are getting the high-quality computing education they deserve. The National Centre for Computing Education offers programmes of CPD, such as Computer Science Accelerator and the Teach Computing certificates awarded by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, aimed at equipping non-specialists with the skills and confidence to tackle teaching computing. Businesses and industry providers can also support a high-quality computing education by sharing their expertise in classrooms as STEM Ambassadors.

Based on data from the School Workforce Census

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Anonymous User
10-10-2023 13:03

@Jo Edwards, I have to support your comment.

Many senior leaders seem to think that Computer Science is kind of the same as the previous ICT courses and don't understand how they are disadvantaging students by just topping up a younger, cheaper science or maths teachers. And I say this as a science/maths teacher btw, no disrespect; I just happen to have industry experience as a technical consultant.

Jasper Common
10-07-2023 12:39

Hi @Chandrika Punshon

Ethnicity would be a difficult thing to investigate on such a detailed level - I have a feeling the rate of suppression would be quite high for underrepresented ethnicities. 
 
Apologies that I can't be of more help about more specific statistics by department or subject, but there are definitely statistics out there about underrepresentation at higher levels - for example, this article details the underrepresentation of marginalised ethnicities in UK academia, and page 105 of this report says that 46% of schools in England have no Black, Asian or minority ethnic teachers!
 
The experience of racism in schools towards teachers is unfortunately also not a unique experience - this article compiles some statistics on discrimination faced by teachers from ethnic minority backgrounds, and how that discrimination manifests in a school environment. 
Thank you for the interesting question!

Jo Edwards
07-07-2023 09:23

My husband is a Computer Science teacher and top of scale. Having come from the IT industry and worked as a trainer for the NCCE I would class him as a specialist teacher. In one of his previous teaching roles, his A level results put his school in the top 10 in the country for Computing. However he has struggled getting a permanent role because he's top of the payscale. At state schools he has been cut in the interview for a whole host of random reasons including his subject knowledge is not strong enough (as he has an engineering degree from 30 years ago rather than computing) but funnily enough an NQT or lower paid teacher has been offered the job in every case.

He's now working for less than top of scale salary at a private school so they are benefiting from his vast knowledge and experience.

Until state schools are funded sufficiently to afford specialist teachers, the situation is never going to improve.

Anonymous User
07-07-2023 08:36

Hi Jasper,

Hmm, Maths, Physics and Computer Science. Have you done an analysis by race?

I've found that many specialists in UK schools have been called 'p*ki c*nt' by students who suffer little or no consequences. Sometimes this happens to a qualified specialists that has a Maths degree before they are even a QTS.

I think the reason Physics is marginally better may be because Science faculties are larger with more internal support systems and less subject to the whims of senior leadership. For example, you could hire three Asian women with PhDs and they could disappear in the faculty without much notice, but one Asian woman in Computer Science has to hold her own. And Maths would be somewhere in between whilst industry struggles to apply it as a specialisation.

I'm certain there would be statistics to support this. Would you know where to find them?

Thank you,
C