Ian Livingstone is wrong

Prompted by @daibarnes , here is a summary of my views about the NextGen Report from NESTA, and Ian Livingstone’s comments in particular. I tweeted about this today – but Dai asked me to expand on this a little – so here it is. I rarely blog like this – largely because there are much smarter people than me who express themselves much better. However, I have noted a real lack of an informed critique of the calls for more coding in schools – and felt I could say something to get this debate going. So, I not claiming to have all the answers, but I hope to provoke others in to thinking harder about this report.

Of the 12 recommendations, I don’t disagree with most, but I did object to the thrust and tone of Ian Livingstone’s talk at MSPILF2011. He made it clear that it was his view that the country should invest in the games and hi-tech media industry to train children and young people to work within it, to maintain our standing as a creative country. Games development, computer science and high end media production skills should be on the curriculum at schools, he said.

So, why did I object to this? I have been an advocate and co-creator of the use of technology  in education for 20 years and now advise organisations how to use new media to make a positive change in the way we engage children in learning. So, why disagree so much with what Ian Livingstone said?

Firstly, I do not  think it is the role of schools to train any specific part of the workforce (ie teach specific industry related skills). Ian Livingstone made a terrible case for why training for games development would lead to a creative and commercially successful sector – using high achievers in the industry to complain that if only they had had coding taught them at school, then they would have been more successful!

The evidence that was before us, in reality and contradiction to Ian Livingstone’s point – was that the breadth of their learning had given them the foundations to specialise and succeed later in life. We cannot train for the jobs of the future as those jobs are not there yet and if we train for the jobs that are there now, then we will damage our chances of economic competitive.

I believe that there are a range of computing basics that schools should be teaching and that includes some coding – BUT I do not agree with  a coding curriculum from the industry – as Livingstone demands. I am not expert enough to say what should be taught and experienced – but I do not believe that the current crop of games company executives are in a position to either.

Furthermore, I am sick of the games industry telling us how successful they are and how much money they bring into the economy – and then come to education events bleating that they are struggling for great graduates while investing so little in schools.

In terms of the wider economy (to be a little political) these companies and those that lead them are in no position to complain about the status of education in the UK when they are taking their profits offshore to avoid tax here.

Also, it is an industry with very a poor record in looking after the people who work in it – claiming that their ways of treating workers is just being competitive with the ‘east’… ie treating them like fodder.

I love games. I have been a gamer for 36 years. I was doing Games Based Learning in the mid 90s (using Sonic on the SegaMega Drive for story starters). I know senior people in the industry. I love what they create. I have spent a small fortune on games and the devices to run them.

I think that Intellect UK, the trade body for the IT industry, is taking great new steps to think about how to answer the social responsibility it has to the communities that buy into their products and services.

That said, I feel that creating a part of the curriculum for game design, and accepting any parts of the NextGen Report should come with a price for the studios themselves.

There are some recommendations we should do anyway, but any that benefit the games industry should come with a pro rata contribution in hard cash direct into the schools sector. There should be a tax on the games industry in return for the sort of specific ”help’ they are asking for. It could be said that they are asking the state to fund the sort of training that in other industries either the worker or company has to pay for. Surely this is not reasonable – however much we love what the games industry do.

Finally, Ian Livingstone is living proof, through his life story and his journey to his place as a creative giant helping to build a new media, of why his report – and the logic underpinning it – is flawed and self serving.

I would like to see this great man and the great people in the games industry return the love from young people all over the world – and give something tangible back – to education and the wider society.

Eylan Ezekiel
@eylanezekiel