26th Nov 2015

The Irish Independent ran an article yesterday titled Computer sciences are our children’s passport to success in the Digital Age. The article highlighted 900,000 job vacancies across the EU by 2020 due to a lack of digital skills. The author was Ronan Harris, Vice President, Google, EMEA and head of Google in Ireland who argued that these vacancies should not be unfilled, stating that Governments, educators and the business community all have a role to play in ensuring that our young people are equipped with the skills they need to be able to fill these jobs and to become active participants in the Digital Age we now live in.

He acknowledged that the government recognises this mission, but that Ireland is ‘behind the curve’ with Israel, New Zealand, Estonia and the UK (who introduced Computer Science into the curriculum for 5-16 year old students last year) leading the way. He noted that Ireland is doing well despite lacking a secondary school curriculum with Coder Dojo, a new postgraduate qualification for qualified teachers in 21st century teaching and learning organised by Google and Trinity College Dublin, the DEIS (Delivering Equality Of Opportunity In Schools) strategy, and Call to Code, a nationwide coding competition for 13-18 year olds.

He also highlighted the underrepresentation of girls in Computer Science, and the Irish software research centre Lero being awarded a grant by Google’s RISE programme to support its work in encouraging girls to study computer science.

He ended by pointing out Google’s CS4HS grant programme which funds professional development in computer science for teachers, and the 24 Hours of Code events in Ireland taking place next month.

Full story here.