IoD Scotland Autumn 2021
Institute of Directors Scotland, business magazine, directors
Institute of Directors Scotland, business magazine, directors
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Leadership Interview: Professor Mark Logan<br />
Continued from page 13<br />
To prove his point, he offers a lesson<br />
from history. “I’m from Clydebank. At<br />
one point a fifth of the world’s ships<br />
came from its shipyards; Clydebank<br />
built over 30,000 ships. An entire<br />
infrastructure was created around the<br />
area to support the shipyards. New<br />
businesses were set up to feed through<br />
what was needed – parts, services,<br />
people – and in the end these shipyards<br />
came to dominate the world of shipping.<br />
“Think of it in today’s language:<br />
Clydebank was a hi-tech start-up<br />
ecosystem. The only difference was that<br />
the raw material of that ecosystem was<br />
iron rather than software. Why can’t we<br />
repeat that?<br />
“<strong>Scotland</strong> is a start-up nation, always<br />
has been. We can turn our hand to<br />
anything as long as we have the right<br />
ecosystem in place to support it.”<br />
Creating such a system is a mammoth<br />
– but achievable – goal, and one that will<br />
be based on education. “The tech sector<br />
needs a pipeline of new talent. There<br />
are many things you need to create the<br />
perfect digital ecosystem but if we are to<br />
make <strong>Scotland</strong> a world leader in tech, it’s<br />
people with the right skills that we need<br />
first.”<br />
This starts with the schools and<br />
colleges. Young people need coding<br />
skills, says Mark, but he’s concerned that<br />
it’s going to take a huge sea-change in<br />
attitude to ensure this happens.<br />
“I’d say that we are facing an<br />
educational emergency. Everything<br />
we have planned for the future is<br />
underpinned by this pipeline of talent<br />
from our schools and colleges. However,<br />
there’s a worrying trend developing: we<br />
have fewer computer science teachers<br />
than a decade ago, fewer children taking<br />
computer science and an even greater<br />
gender imbalance in the subject.<br />
“It’s as if we’re moving away from a<br />
digital future, not towards it.”<br />
“We have to shift mindset. If maths<br />
was collapsing at schools, we would<br />
respond appropriately and put the<br />
necessary resources in, as people would<br />
say that it’s vital children leave school<br />
with good maths skills. I’d say, nowadays,<br />
having good computer science skills was<br />
as critical as good maths.”<br />
A lack of dedicated computer science<br />
teachers is often put down to more<br />
attractive opportunities being available<br />
in industry, but Mark says that this is too<br />
simplistic a view on what is happening.<br />
“Why not offer teachers in other<br />
disciplines the computer science skills<br />
we need? If you have a good maths or<br />
science teacher, you can give them the<br />
skills they need to teach computing. Or<br />
we can market more actively to science<br />
and engineering undergraduates about<br />
computing science teaching. We don’t<br />
do that. Let’s behave as if solving this<br />
problem greatly matters.”<br />
Mark feels that computer science is<br />
often sidelined in schools. “We need to<br />
make the syllabus exciting and dynamic,<br />
so we attract the brightest students<br />
and the best teachers. At the moment<br />
we have weakened the subject to<br />
accommodate teaching by non-sector<br />
specialists. Imagine if we did that to<br />
maths – made it easier, so non-maths<br />
teachers could teach it. We just wouldn’t<br />
tolerate that.”<br />
<strong>Scotland</strong> must look outside its borders<br />
to see how other countries teach<br />
technology. “If you look at Estonia, for<br />
example, they’ve done this really well.<br />
If you think it is important, you make it<br />
important. Until now, we haven’t.”<br />
Among many ideas to improve this<br />
situation, he has one simple idea which<br />
is straight from Silicon Valley: “Silicon<br />
Valley flourished by creating a pool of<br />
shared knowledge and excellence, a<br />
place where people could learn from and<br />
teach others. Do the same with teaching.<br />
Set up a learning network for computer<br />
science teachers, dedicating some of<br />
them to curating and propagating best<br />
teaching practice across the country,<br />
and hold an annual conference to further<br />
build identify and community.”<br />
Creating a pathway to develop skills<br />
would help, too. “Computing changes<br />
far more quickly than every other<br />
subject. For a teacher graduating 13<br />
years ago, there was no mobile app<br />
development, for example. We need a<br />
micro-credentialised MSc and similar<br />
schemes for teachers to take over a<br />
period of time, allowing them to master<br />
the subject and then remain current.”<br />
But improving computer science<br />
in schools isn’t the only requirement.<br />
“We need more opportunities for<br />
older people to learn coding and other<br />
computing skills. There are plenty of<br />
talented people out there who possibly<br />
left school without the chance to gain<br />
tech skills but who would love to learn<br />
them now.”<br />
We also need to help our computing<br />
graduates. “Great, they’ve got the<br />
technological skills, but let’s help them<br />
gain the entrepreneurial skills they’ll need<br />
if they are to join or lead a start-up.”<br />
Access to funding is crucial too, but<br />
his main challenge is for <strong>Scotland</strong> “to be<br />
bold if it is to fulfill its vision of being a<br />
tech leader. We need to create space for<br />
start-ups in incubator units, where they<br />
can nurture new ideas. We need to see<br />
the cross-fertilisation of ideas, where<br />
companies are learning from each other<br />
via a network of tech hubs.”<br />
But <strong>Scotland</strong> also needs to import<br />
best practice. At Skyscanner, “we knew<br />
14 iod.com <strong>Autumn</strong> <strong>2021</strong>