IT fails A-level students

As usual, this year's crop of A-level results showed another increase in students passing the exams, with the pass rate rising for the 28th year in a row to 97.6 per cent, up from 97.5 last year.

And the new A* award looks set to go the same way as its GCSE counterpart in usefulness, with eight per cent of all A-level exams - or one in 12 of all entries - already achieving the new grade.

The A* was introduced to help universities or employers distinguish between the brightest students, as the proportion being awarded the highest A grade continued to rise. But I'm sure next year's A-level results will show an increase in the number of A* grades, and the year after that and so on, removing its supposed value.

Of the 853,933 A-level entries this year, 8.1 per cent got an A*, while 18.9 per cent were awarded the standard A grade. This represents a slight increase on the 26.7 per cent of A grades awarded in 2009.

So what does the latest crop of results mean for the IT industry? It's bad news on the face of it, as the number of A-level students opting for IT subjects has dropped year on year.

This summer, 12,186 students took the ICT A-level. The good news is that this figure is up from 11,948 last year, the not so good news is that it still only represents the same 1.4 per cent proportion of the total exams taken, showing that IT hasn't actually got more popular as a subject choice.

In the same timeframe, Computing A-levels fell from 4,710 (0.6 per cent) last year to 4,065 (0.5 per cent) in 2010.

One side of the coin is to argue that this isn't necessarily bad news for the UK IT industry. As technology becomes more ingrained in our lives, and the web, mobile phones, laptops and social networking become more of an everyday part of life for our younger generations, the need for them to do separate IT exams will decrease, just as you don't need to take English A-level to forge a successful career in journalism or publishing.

However, the more worrying argument would be that younger generations are shying away from IT courses as they don't see job prospects in the industry.

UK technology innovation is hardly world beating, especially compared to the Far East and the US. And we're outsourcing more of our lower level roles, like developers, to save on costs, meaning it's harder for UK students to get entry-level technology positions and work their way up the career ladder.

As long as the government and UK businesses continue on the same path with their technology innovation and outsourcing strategies, don't expect a rush of bright young IT graduates any time soon.