UK schools coding skills have 'gone backwards' reflects 'sad' Sir Clive Sinclair

ZX Spectrum designer laments that the UK's mantle has slipped

Sir Clive Sinclair is "sad" that the UK has declined in terms of producing the kind of expert coders that pioneered programming back in the days of his ZX Spectrum computer.

"We've certainly gone backwards," said Sir Clive, speaking exclusively to Computing.

"In the 1980s, Britain was the world leader in coding for children, and the government should have put computing on the school syllabus then, not wait decades to do it.

"I feel very sad that it happened that way. We could now still be a world leader, but many other countries have embraced coding and IT in their education systems considerably more than we have done."

Then-Education Secretary Michael Gove introduced Computer Science as a GCSE in 2013, telling Computing at the time that the new curriculum, which replaced the previous focus around ICT, would "help children to understand the logic and laws of the digital world". That initiative included offering coding classes to children from the age of five.

As a result, along with Gove's "Master Teachers" running coding clubs after school, simple languages like Scratch and more complex ones like JavaScript are becoming the norm in UK schools.

But what does Sir Clive think children should be learning if they are to repeat the successes of 1980s coding heroes?

"I haven't been keeping bang up to date with all the many languages which have materialised since the 80s," he tells Computing.

"But from what I've read, I would still say that BASIC needs a lot of beating. It's so simple to learn and to use, and yet it can be quite powerful."

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Sir Clive was building his technology empire, it was relatively simple to find technically-minded assistants among the recently graduated, he says.

"Being in Cambridge helped a lot," he reflects. "And in those days there were already a lot of very bright techies in the UK."