Science exams are to be made easier to encourage more pupils to study, and so reverse the declining demand for the subject in schools. Well, they might as well do the same with computer studies and IT courses because they are clearly a waste of time.

What other conclusions can you draw from the continued fall in the number of technology GCSE and A-level exams being studied? Students are not interested in learning the subject. Universities do not bother to mandate computer A-levels as a pre-requisite for degrees in the subject. And according to the continuing letters from Computing readers, few employers are bothered about whether or not potential candidates have academic qualifications in IT at any level.

So are we on the verge of a time when IT employers will completely disregard the exam history of new entrants to the profession? Accountancy firms would never choose trainees without passing maths exams, no junior doctors would be allowed to avoid studying medicine, and no solicitor would make the grade without learning law. Personal attributes such as enthusiasm, aptitude and communication skills are vital criteria of course, but should IT as a recruiting profession be left to rely solely on these subjective judgements?

The sad fact is that IT employers are becoming increasingly divorced from the academic institutions that are meant to be preparing young people for a career in IT.

When A-level results were published earlier this month, the Department for Children, Schools and Families justified the drop in IT exams by telling Computing that ‘many young people interested in IT are taking alternative vocational routes rather than A-level.’ That just about says it all really – even the government aren’t bothered and expect pupils to find another way into IT rather than through A-levels, which one can only assume it tacitly acknowledges are not worth the screen they are printed from.

There will of course be exceptions – the technically-focused nature of many degree courses no doubt prepare interested graduates for careers in research or software programming. Just don’t mention that more and more firms outsource programming to India or elsewhere.

The most worrying aspect of this trend is that IT employers no longer seem to care about the inability of academia to prepare young people for a career in the profession. It is just accepted as a fact. Will the new IT Diploma make a difference? Let us hope so – but if the basic exam qualifications that every child goes through are so irrelevant to our industry, there is a more fundamental problem that surely has to be addressed.

What do you think?