UKNOF38 - UK Education: Skills gaps and recruitment

Speaker: Mr. Colin Smith (UTC Sheffield)

What is the biggest challenge in recruitment of good technical staff? What is being taught in schools and colleges and how is it delivered? Who decides what should be taught? How could things be done better? I don’t pretend to know all the answers, but I am an educator and I know how students learn and can show how technical education and relevant skills are being delivered and where the gaps are. GCSE ICT is gone, replaced by computer science. Sixth form colleges are switching to ‘T-levels’ and A-level computer science is already replacing ICT. It’s important because it’s not a closed loop, things can be done to make UK education more relevant to this ever changing and evolving industry, and I have a few ideas on how this can be done, from the local school to the government and the industry itself

[UndieingLust]

have to disagree at 6.15 of the video when Subnetting is mentioned. From someone who had a CCNA I find it hilariously ironic that he spend the time to teach his students to subnet the proper way, then tells them to forget about it and use a subnet calculator. which is cheating. You should only ever use a subnet cal to check your work. NOT to do the actual calculations. On the CCNA exam you are not allow to use a calculator. Where I work currently, and as a CCNA holder myself. If any of the IT staff saw someone on the IT team who has a CCNA use a calculator to do subnetting. We would be quite suspicious of the validity of their certification. "Did they actually study and learn the material or did they brain dump it?"