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UK tech: gender and skills gap

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https://www.hiscox.co.uk/business-blog/uk-tech-industry-bigger-problem-gender/

 

In a nutshell: there's a gender gap in the tech industry in the UK, fewer women truly computer literate than men, but more than that there is a general skills gap when compared with other countries (USA, India, etc) and this will be detrimental to the UK in the future.

 

Thoughts?

 

I'm aware of having been told -- for a good many years -- how literate my generation is in computer technology compared to our forerunners. But I'm equally aware that almost everyone I've ever met would shriek and run a mile at being presented with even the most basic line of code. Most of us don't actually understand anything past the GUI, so to call us "computer literate" might be a stretch.

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Acquiring language is natural to all people. וn contrast acquiring computer programming language is not natural to most people. I estimate that only 20% or less of population can learn computer programming ,the others don't have inborn capability for that.

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A gender gap ? You mean women don't particularly like coding and engineering ?

There's a gender gap in nursery schools too, because guys don't particularly like looking after children.

We can easily outsource coding and engineering - just wait until the new generation deluge of highly technically educated engineers from China are released onto the world.

 

The problem in the UK is too much Government strategy trying to create certain types of industry and labour whilst sidelining others.

 

We have too much regulation and a pathetic, over expensive paper qualification system that has meant changes in skilling for a changing employment environment is prohibitively expensive and time consuming.

 

We have a housing market bubble which makes it difficult for youngsters to find cheap accommodation close to areas where they are needed.

 

Our taxes, employment laws, welfare system and wage fixing are destroying entrepreneurship and the creation of new jobs.

 

The increasing number of years youngsters are stuck in schools reduces the non academics life chances of 'on the job learning' in a technical/production environment. Minimum wages, taxes, regulations make it impossible for business to train and employ them. The Government is flashing tax payers cash on useless apprentice schemes instead of allowing this to naturally occur by leaving school earlier.

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Acquiring language is natural to all people. וn contrast acquiring computer programming language is not natural to most people. I estimate that only 20% or less of population can learn computer programming ,the others don't have inborn capability for that.

You are incorrect, they simply don't want to do it, it's fucking boring. I worked in that industry for industrial automation selling the equipment. We had access to PLC programme training. I fell asleep and that's rare for me. I tried coding my own website but completely lost the will to live after six weeks. My brother, by contrast, loves it, but then he is very geeky.

 

Coding isn't a long term career, it will shortly be automated to the point that very few coders are needed and those that are will likely be cheaper Chinese engineering types.

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The government are late at introducing ICT to the national curriculum, all school kids should have been taught to code at least 5 years ago. It will take a while to catch up but I'm sure they will

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The government are late at introducing ICT to the national curriculum, all school kids should have been taught to code at least 5 years ago. It will take a while to catch up but I'm sure they will

There are plenty of online coding courses without waiting for the Government to introduce them. In my experience the state education system is so slow at changing that the things taught will be so out of date. It's also likely that there won't be any need for coding after all that education.

 

We should be educating young adults how to educate themselves then offering external pathways for their particular interests. This battery hen style system doesn't work.

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There are plenty of online coding courses without waiting for the Government to introduce them. In my experience the state education system is so slow at changing that the things taught will be so out of date. It's also likely that there won't be any need for coding after all that education.

 

We should be educating young adults how to educate themselves then offering external pathways for their particular interests. This battery hen style system doesn't work.

 

When you learn one coding language it gives you the basis and teaches you the fundamental approaches to learning any of the others, even if that language is out of date. I don't see coding being useless for a long long time, in many ways it is becoming more and more important now, its in all our fridges, kettles, watches, cars, etc, its pretty much the basis for everything these days. I'm all for a revolution in education, but before that happens all kids at a young age should be learning to code in school, it can even be quite creative and fun.

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Why not teach seed drilling, hand riveting or horse shoeing ? These were all vital skills in the 1800s. Coding isn't a high level skill, it does not engage cognitive development. Coding is no use without a product that needs to be coded. It isn't a stand alone skill.

 

I don't know how old you are, but I lived through the ICT revolution from its very beginnings. I have seen how quickly the skills change to the extent that learning one kind of thing is pretty much useless for any other kind of thing.

 

We need entrepreneurs and that cannot be taught. Education should not be about turning out shovel ready workers, but adults that can learn new skills from the basics. Programming is related to language, maths and science. It is a good grounding in those subjects that is required, with an opportunity to take up skills as they appear but not necessarily at school itself.

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When you learn one coding language it gives you the basis and teaches you the fundamental approaches to learning any of the others, even if that language is out of date. I don't see coding being useless for a long long time, in many ways it is becoming more and more important now, its in all our fridges, kettles, watches, cars, etc, its pretty much the basis for everything these days. I'm all for a revolution in education, but before that happens all kids at a young age should be learning to code in school, it can even be quite creative and fun.

 

yep, agree with that,

accidentally, i know several talented female programmers. They all learned some basics when still kids.

This fact has steered them towards the successful careers they have now, they told me so. It was the first taste at primary school that set them on doing some extra course when teenagers, and then another and finally  the decision to make it their job and do the hard work that's needed at schooling.

 

these preliminaries have given them the needed self-confidence to attend to a school ( and later workplace) where the majority ( at least in their times) was male.

 

of course, 3 women is not exactly a broad sample, but still  ;)

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Why not teach seed drilling, hand riveting or horse shoeing ? These were all vital skills in the 1800s. Coding isn't a high level skill, it does not engage cognitive development. Coding is no use without a product that needs to be coded. It isn't a stand alone skill.

 

I don't know how old you are, but I lived through the ICT revolution from its very beginnings. I have seen how quickly the skills change to the extent that learning one kind of thing is pretty much useless for any other kind of thing.

 

We need entrepreneurs and that cannot be taught. Education should not be about turning out shovel ready workers, but adults that can learn new skills from the basics. Programming is related to language, maths and science. It is a good grounding in those subjects that is required, with an opportunity to take up skills as they appear but not necessarily at school itself.

Baffling set of opinions to me, can you personally code in any language?

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Baffling set of opinions to me, can you personally code in any language?

I try not to. If my life depended on it I could do so. It doesn't and I don't.

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Yes, coding can be boring and baffling for most when first introduced, and for some it will always be so, and it is because of this that there are *apparently* fewer people going into the industry with good knowledge of it. But perhaps more should persist in it, and perhaps the notion that it's only for 'pathetic geeks' should be reconsidered in the public opinion.

 

And I agree that it's not a basic human skill, but neither is shoeing a horse. Nearly nobody alive today needs to be able to shoe a horse -- but a few more would benefit from a deeper understanding of code. Important human skills from a hundred or thousand years ago -- smithing or carpenting or hunting and gathering -- are less fundamental today. Yes, if the worst happens we might all regret not having learned how to make an axe for hunting, but right now we are more likely to use basic knowledge of how code-based machines work. As Jetsun says, our lives are full of code -- it is the basis for so many things that are, now, "fundamental" to the smooth running of an average person's life.

 

I know a good few people working in the industry. A few, who work at the same company producing software for something or other, speak often of the barrier between coders and all others. There is a need for multiple (translator) roles in between client and programmer because of major communication issues; clients frequently ask for things that cannot be done, and programmers frequently do things that don't make sense to anyone who doesn't know how to code. It all sounds highly inefficient and a lot of hard work.

 

 

A gender gap ? You mean women don't particularly like coding and engineering ?
There's a gender gap in nursery schools too, because guys don't particularly like looking after children.
We can easily outsource coding and engineering - just wait until the new generation deluge of highly technically educated engineers from China are released onto the world.

 

Yes, a gap for whatever reason is a gap. Whether it's because women don't like it or see it as something men should do or another reason, there's a gap and it's worth addressing at least in passing. Maybe it's not a big deal and we can ignore it, but maybe the industry would benefit from more women who actually know their C from their C++   (I think that makes sense...)

 

 

 

The government are late at introducing ICT to the national curriculum, all school kids should have been taught to code at least 5 years ago. It will take a while to catch up but I'm sure they will

There are plenty of online coding courses without waiting for the Government to introduce them. In my experience the state education system is so slow at changing that the things taught will be so out of date. It's also likely that there won't be any need for coding after all that education.

We should be educating young adults how to educate themselves then offering external pathways for their particular interests. This battery hen style system doesn't work.

 

We should all be taught things that we're not. I believe we should be taught the basics of domestic and international law before we leave school, among other things. But I agree with Karl to the extent that formative education should be general and useful on a wide scale -- should teach people how to learn, how to think, etc. It is true that one who wants to learn code can pick it up online easily -- a computer and the internet are the precise and only tools needed to learn and do..

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There is an emotive accent to 'gap'.

In marketing it is said "perhaps there is a gap in the market, but is there a market in the gap"

This sums up the idea of 'gap' based thinking. Is there a 'gap' in longshore fisherman, deep sea divers, plant maintenance, scaffolders and roofers ? Of course there isn't.

 

There is sufficient proof to show that men and women prefer different kinds of productive activity, it is the feminists activist political influencers that drive the idea of gender gaps in order to suggest 'more must be done'. I mentioned this in another thread. It's a bit like UKIP in many ways. Once the work of leaving the EU has been completed then UKIP are redundant. However, those groups that have similarly completed rights equality want to remain in power and must ferret out ever more ludicrous 'equality gaps' to repair. It's the silent 'equality' that precedes 'gaps' in order that people don't catch on to the game being played.

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Needs must for me in this case.

 

I'm of the generation that if you had any interest in computers, you had to learn basic programming to use them. But, when I meet 'tech savy' younger people, although they can do far more with a computer than me, they only know how to actually code if they've made a special effort. There is so much you can do with computers these days without having to create code.

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There is sufficient proof to show that men and women prefer different kinds of productive activity, it is the feminists activist political influencers that drive the idea of gender gaps in order to suggest 'more must be done'. I mentioned this in another thread. It's a bit like UKIP in many ways. Once the work of leaving the EU has been completed then UKIP are redundant. However, those groups that have similarly completed rights equality want to remain in power and must ferret out ever more ludicrous 'equality gaps' to repair. It's the silent 'equality' that precedes 'gaps' in order that people don't catch on to the game being played.

 

Yes, there are differences between male and female, between human men and women. This is not to say that every difference is genetic, that no difference is cultural, etc.

 

I don't think feminism needs to come into it. I'm not a feminist, but one who recognizes that just because certain groups were given suffrage and other rights a few decades ago doesn't necessarily mean that everyone instantly had access to equal opportunity of thought and action.

 

Old customs die hard. You are deluded if you really believe that the fight for equality -- for all sorts of people -- is now redundant!

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Yes, there are differences between male and female, between human men and women. This is not to say that every difference is genetic, that no difference is cultural, etc.

 

I don't think feminism needs to come into it. I'm not a feminist, but one who recognizes that just because certain groups were given suffrage and other rights a few decades ago doesn't necessarily mean that everyone instantly had access to equal opportunity of thought and action.

 

Old customs die hard. You are deluded if you really believe that the fight for equality -- for all sorts of people -- is now redundant!

What customs. If women want to code there is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing so. There are no limits on education nor on jobs. I've never heard anything so ridiculous. We had women engineers when I was at uni back in '85.

 

There is no equality difference in the UK at least which is what we are talking about. There are no limits on anything for women, not even the army or airforce.

 

There will never be equality in the sense of everyone acting like clones, indeed this would make it impossible to choose those who had some spark, or talent to push a business forward, or create fantastic art. We would end up with a completely grey world of sexless, clone creatures. Yuk.

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Perhaps, as I have already said, there is nothing stopping women from coding other than the fact that women simply don't enjoy coding.

 

But really.. that's clearly not true. Evidence from numerous other nations confirms that women can be far more likely to step into the coding arena than they are here. Which would suggest, to anyone willing to consider the amazing possibility, that a cultural difference is in effect. Also,

 

http://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/csep590/06au/readings/p175-gurer.pdf

 

"Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, was a mathematician who collaborated with Charles Babbage on the Difference and Analytical Engines, which are regarded as the theoretical foundation for the modem computer"

 

The example of this woman alone is obvious. At that time, women were not doing things like that. Who knows what more of an influence women would have had had the culture been less sexist. But regardless, Lovelace played an important role. And now, who has heard of her? I have heard the name Babbage a hundred times in regard to mathematics and computing, but never Lovelace. And what effect does that have now? None? Young students aren't affected by the consistent prominence of men in advancements in mathematics and technology? A stream of male role models and lack of female role models in textbooks doesn't have any affect on how many men vs women decide to choose computer science?

 

You are right: there are no legal or even outright social barriers to women coding. But there are other barriers. And these barriers probably aren't causing major social or environmental problems. But they obviously exist, or there would be more women in the programming arena..... like there are in other countries.

 

I think this is interesting. I don't particularly care about computer programming above many other things, but the obvious decline in female programmers in the last few decades, and the fact that someone like you will blatantly claim that the gap could not possibly be anything to do with cultural perceptions of male/female or any historical factor or anything other than a pure, wide genetic gap between men and women, is itself evidence to me of a continued persistence and ignorance of gender inequality here.

Edited by dustybeijing
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Perhaps, as I have already said, there is nothing stopping women from coding other than the fact that women simply don't enjoy coding.

 

But really.. that's clearly not true. Evidence from numerous other nations confirms that women can be far more likely to step into the coding arena than they are here. Which would suggest, to anyone willing to consider the amazing possibility, that a cultural difference is in effect. Also,

 

http://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/csep590/06au/readings/p175-gurer.pdf

 

"Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, was a mathematician who collaborated with Charles Babbage on the Difference and Analytical Engines, which are regarded as the theoretical foundation for the modem computer"

 

The example of this woman alone is obvious. At that time, women were not doing things like that. Who knows what more of an influence women would have had had the culture been less sexist. But regardless, Lovelace played an important role. And now, who has heard of her? I have heard the name Babbage a hundred times in regard to mathematics and computing, but never Lovelace. And what effect does that have now? None? Young students aren't affected by the consistent prominence of men in advancements in mathematics and technology? A stream of male role models and lack of female role models in textbooks doesn't have any affect on how many men vs women decide to choose computer science?

 

You are right: there are no legal or even outright social barriers to women coding. But there are other barriers. And these barriers probably aren't causing major social or environmental problems. But they obviously exist, or there would be more women in the programming arena..... like there are in other countries.

 

I think this is interesting. I don't particularly care about computer programming above many other things, but the obvious decline in female programmers in the last few decades, and the fact that someone like you will blatantly claim that the gap could not possibly be anything to do with cultural perceptions of male/female or any historical factor or anything other than a pure, wide genetic gap between men and women, is itself evidence to me of a continued persistence and ignorance of gender inequality here.

WTF ! I don't give a toss why it is some women don't choose it, they just don't and you think this a problem ?

 

There is no equality except the equality of rights, you are measuring fucking rainbows. How did you get that lodged in your brain ?

 

I cannot believe what I'm hearing, I thought this was just myth. I've seen young people talking like this like they just came out of a re-education camp. The number of women in any field is not a sign of 'gender inequality' whether it is the result of a historical/cultural patriarchy-which is what you are implying. Stop looking for correlation where there is none to be found. if you want to start going down this stupid path, then perhaps you should stop off at the bit in history where men were expected to go to war to fight and die and women gave the white feather to men who refused. History shows women to have had a very nice time of things whilst the man worked himself into an early grave - men's lifespan was significantly shorter than women due to the expectation that they were bread winner in peace time and defender in war. Men were also entirely responsible for the debt of their wives.

 

We have equality of rights and then an awful lot of special privilege for women which appears to be some kind of perverted compensation that they are due because of some mythical history which has nothing to do with the men of today's world who are getting punished for these sins of the past.

Edited by Karl

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I would say there is a lot of negative culture and ideas in schools in all sorts of areas, at least in state schools. When I was there there was generally a very negative attitude towards intelligence in general, so you would pretend not to be intelligent and pretend you didn't work hard or do your homework, at my school the geeks would get bullied and beaten up. There is certainly a negative attitude around girls doing things like maths, science and computing in that it was seen to be not cool or geeky and girls generally enter puberty at an earlier age so the desire to fit in, attract a partner and the whole teenager thing where you like to be part of the herd kicks in a bit sooner. So many girls may give up on maths and computing sooner than they should even if they may be good at it or enjoy it. 

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I think the sides being drawn in this debate are actually both sharing some correct views because like any issue it can be viewed from various angles.

 

 

Perhaps, as I have already said, there is nothing stopping women from coding other than the fact that women simply don't enjoy coding.

 

But really.. that's clearly not true. Evidence from numerous other nations confirms that women can be far more likely to step into the coding arena than they are here. Which would suggest, to anyone willing to consider the amazing possibility, that a cultural difference is in effect. Also,

 

I would agree that the reasons, opportunities and likely pressures are varied.   Why did India emerge as the worlds 'tech support' ?    

 

When I go to DC to work with the data analysts and programmers there, it has a number of Indian works and the women outnumber the men.

 

Here, while in china, I'm reminded of how it is not uncommon to see women as a taxi driver, working at a gas pump, cleaning the streets, pulling full carts around at 5am; easy to heavy labor doesn't seem to have to much of a distinction in some areas.

 

I think you want to label some of the observations and causes and thus we end up with a topic on gender gap and influences that include the culture... one could say the culture of the mind as well as I think that is closer to what Karl suggests.

 

For some, it can just be opportunity cost but that usually comes with a setting where choice is readily available.  Remove choice and I think a lot changes.  For some, that removal may be due to population or competition issues but we can see it in India and China in some cases.  Some will jump at the opportunity to get ahead and others will grasp the chance to do anything beyond what they previous were doing.   These may be beyond cultural to just socio-economic pressures for survival that we don't quite experience say here in the US where laziness is rewarded on some level (ie: poverty programs).

 

in history where men were expected to go to war to fight and die and women gave the white feather to men who refused. History shows women to have had a very nice time of things whilst the man worked himself into an early grave - men's lifespan was significantly shorter than women due to the expectation that they were bread winner in peace time and defender in war. Men were also entirely responsible for the debt of their wives.

 

I think from a historical perspective, this is the classic point... but if you dig down deep, why is this the case?

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Maybe it´s the old foggy in me, but I´m not sure everyone needs to learn to code.  Best case scenario, everyone is exposed to a wide variety of potential learning tracks and encouraged to follow their own curiosities.

Edited by liminal_luke
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I would say there is a lot of negative culture and ideas in schools in all sorts of areas, at least in state schools. When I was there there was generally a very negative attitude towards intelligence in general, so you would pretend not to be intelligent and pretend you didn't work hard or do your homework, at my school the geeks would get bullied and beaten up. There is certainly a negative attitude around girls doing things like maths, science and computing in that it was seen to be not cool or geeky and girls generally enter puberty at an earlier age so the desire to fit in, attract a partner and the whole teenager thing where you like to be part of the herd kicks in a bit sooner. So many girls may give up on maths and computing sooner than they should even if they may be good at it or enjoy it.

 

Hence the reason we should end state schooling as soon as possible. I can't remember this being the case in my own school, but it appears from anecdotal evidence that things have been getting progressively worse.

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Maybe it´s the old foggy in me, but I´m not sure everyone needs to learn to code.  Best case scenario, everyone is exposed to a wide variety of potential learning tracks and encouraged to follow their own curiosities.

You stick with that old fogey because that is exactly how it should be. Children are naturally curious and love to learn as long as the environment encourages it. How many have had their aspirations drowned and their dreams burned in attempt to make them fit into a bell curve ?

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