Re: One hopes ...
I'm currently helping to teach the new Computer Science GCSE that is replacing the ICT qualifications.
I'm also a programmer with 10 years exp in a variety of languages running a UK wide software consultancy doing work in big and small companies on system structure and design </appeal_to_authority>
The course is good, very good in fact. There are a couple of rough edges (notably the software life cycle bit), but overall its excellent. The kids are engaged and excited about making the computer do things they didn't know were even an option for them.
This is a tremendous success story for UK and everyone who pushed for it over the years, including the government, deserves a big pat on the back.
We have adopted python 3, as thats what the other schools in the area are using and resources are available for. The kids are amused by me teaching myself python in front of them, and they learn it all the better.
It will have replaced ICT at the GCSE level totally within another year, and across the region within another couple, as far as I can see, and is being pushed further down in the curriculum.
Just a few years from now, every child coming through school will have been exposed to programming and have seen and used imperative languages, mobile apps, declarative (HTML essentially) and made web pages from the bottom up.
This year 10 GCSE group is learning python and making simple programmes already, and they will each have made a game, with graphics and sound, by the end of the academic year, and understand how and why it works.
Now, you may say, there is a shortage of teachers, however there is not. There is a shortage of skills, certainly, and a big push is in progress to give the needed skills to teachers and provide them with help. Guess why I'm there? I provide the technical assistance until the teacher is confident enough to do things alone.
So, you cynics, get off your arses, stop complaining about ICT, and go and change things. The possibilities are there now --> See http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/
Run by Simon Peyton Jones aka, Mr Haskell (a very very clever chap, and all round nice guy).
Schools need programmers to go and help. (Reg staff, fancy promoting this more?)