Computing reported recently that the number of children taking exams in IT or computing-related subjects has dropped yet again.

We regularly write about the challenge of reducing the skills gap – finding the 140,000 new recruits to the IT profession that will be needed every year for the next five years.

And it’s good to know that these are topics that animate our readers and encourage them to join the debate through commenting on news stories or writing letters to the editor.

I often receive such letters from recent graduates detailing the difficulties they are having finding jobs in IT – typically bemoaning the fact that everyone says there is a skills shortage and worries that not enough young people study IT, yet when they go fo a job employers always say they want someone with real-life experience.

It’s a genuine problem, and I sympathise with their frustrations.

But I have to also be honest and add one important point. Frankly, if the spelling and grammar used in their job applications is the same as in the letters I receive, I’m not surprised nobody will employ them.

It’s all very well being a great programmer or knowing your way around the inside of a server, but correct use of the English language is a pretty basic pre-requisite.

I once talked to an academic from one of the UK’s leading universities who said that during their career they had seen a noticeable drop in the basic ability of students entering further education. Another university has for decades tested its mathematics students on arrival, and can chart the drop in knowledge levels over the years.

I often mention these points when anyone claims that the growing number of A-level passes proves that the UK education system is working. Personally, I have few doubts that the quality of exams has degraded, and my experience of editing our letters page only serves to reinforce that.

The problem of recruiting young people into IT goes much further than simply encouraging more of them to study computer-related subjects.