Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 01 September 2020
In the spirit in which they were asked, I thank the member for both questions.
On the value of the report, Murdo Fraser talked about the need to attract investment. A fascinating element of the report is the comment that it is not necessarily the availability of investment that is at fault—there is public and private investment out there—but the availability of a steady stream of investable propositions, and the ability to take start-ups through the various levels of growth, so that they emerge as successful large companies. That is what we will seek to do with the tech scalers that we will invest in.
Murdo Fraser is right to comment that education is a core element of the review. In the past few years, we—like many Governments around the world—have taken steps to ensure that computing studies are part and parcel of the curriculum. Part of the challenge is to ensure that there are sufficient computing science teachers, given that the pace of change in the tech industry is extremely quick and there are a lot of attractive career options for those who have done computing science at university.
Through our STEM—science, technology, mathematics and engineering—strategy, we have taken steps to boost the number of people who go into STEM teaching, including computing, in the first place. The obvious example is the £20,000 bursary that is offered to those career changers who want to train to teach those subjects.
At its core, the report highlights the need to inspire pupils to continue with computing science and to inspire teachers to recognise the exciting job opportunities for their pupils. Its recommendations for how we enthuse and inspire people in order to attract more youngsters and teachers will be part of the agenda that we take forward.