Ukrainian School Teachers against Computer Science

Today we have a very peculiar piece of news from Ukraine - both funny and at the same time very sad. Same as the rest of the world Ukraine is getting ready for the back to school day. In the meanwhile teachers in the region of Dnepropetrovsk participated in a conference of educators on Wednesday.

The questions discussed at the conference included equipping schools with computers and teaching children the basics of computer science in schools. The results of the discussion are just plain shocking to me: 30% of teachers are totally against any computer science at schools at all.

These shocking results actually have a very simple explanation: the teachers interrogated are mostly in their late 40s and early 50s (or even older) nearing their retirement. Thus their own computer literacy is far from perfect: only 12% of respondents appraised their own computer skills as sufficient and 15% thought their skills were adequate to teach children some basics of using a computer.

It is obvious that educators will hardly ever want to teach children something they don’t understand themselves (or often understand much worse than children in classes) or have poor skills in. And the problem becomes even more paradoxical given the fact that the majority of schools in the region (98%) are already equipped with computer classes while 86% enjoy internet access as well. So even with all the resources required teachers are unable to help children handle computers even at a level of a basic user.

This sounds like a very serious problem (and the same is true here in Russia): in order to teach children use computer (some standard applications and basics of the internet), educators themselves should have a certain level of knowledge in the fields. And given the low remuneration of teachers, the majority of them are older people that are either unable or unwilling to even try to comprehend what a computer is - let alone internet along with all the dangers widely discussed in traditional media. And thus the protests: the teachers simply understand they will have to attend some courses themselves to be able to teach anything first - and this additional load is not something they want their brains to have.

Unfortunately it is obvious that to some countries projects like One Laptop Per Child will be of no help since the problems are much deeper.

Via (in Russian), image used under Creative Commons