It's all relative in IT

“One is to create a relational database – I don’t know what value that has”.

In the days of Web 2.0 how anyone can say that knowledge of relational databases has no value to the IT industry is incredible. It is one of the key things underpinning most IT systems today and at the very least knowledge of it and how it works and is created should be essential.

On the subject of the BCS statistics of those 28,787 teachers who qualified in 2010, how many were actually qualifying as ICT teachers? The statistics as listed are pretty meaningless as there are many relevant degrees for the IT industry (physics and maths, for example) even if they are not specifically “computing” degrees. Furthermore, even though some of those teachers have no degree in “computing” does not mean that they may not have relevant industry experience as they may have been working in the IT industry for several years with a degree in a related subject.

Surely that IT industry experience is far more relevant to an awareness of the needs within the IT industry?

J Newton