The government is launching a new initiative in schools.  They’re taking the smartest kids and upskilling them to take on criminals and foreign powers attacking UK computer systems.

Cyber security is a fast growing industry and it’s changing daily as technology evolves at the speed of light.  However, the skill set needed is difficult to find, it’s far beyond the current education being delivered in schools.

Of course, there will always be kids who lock themselves in their bedrooms and teach themselves how to get past computer security.  The government is hoping to reroute these kids into using their journey of discovery into combatting computer crime instead of becoming one of the criminals.

The programme plans to include work experience, an apprenticeship scheme and encompasses a wide range of activities.

It all sounds wonderful and I can imagine that there will be lots of kids who see themselves as a sort of cyber-James Bond, but as an ex-teacher myself I do question who will be doing the teaching.

From experience I know that it’s not unusual for teachers to suddenly find that the school board has decided to offer new subjects – without the teaching staff to meet the teaching needs.  Hopefully, the first steps in this project will be to equip selected teachers to deliver the necessary training, or perhaps it’s actually a retraining scheme for ex-cyber spies.