This may be slightly off-topic (apologies), but what I worry about regarding this scheme are the people/companies who will be brought in to get schools up to sp

This may be slightly off-topic (apologies), but what I worry about regarding this scheme are the people/companies who will be brought in to get schools up to speed. Call me cynical if you must, but I think, inevitably, they will be 'IT consultants' that maybe know a bit of SQL, but are otherwise shysters. (That's my impression of the IT consultancy sector in the UK, at least. I'd love to be proven wrong!) Most of the current generation of software engineers taught themselves in the beginning. Or, at least, had enough curiosity and initiative to investigate on their own volition and/or put themselves in knowledge's way (e.g., set themselves up for computer science degrees, etc.) Consultants however are invariably from the world of social engineering, where they get by and succeed through excessive self-confidence and, if you're lucky, they may have picked up a technical anecdote here-or-there. I certainly agree with the sentiment of teaching/introducing proper computer science and/or software engineering to kids, but I can't help but feel that, as a government project, it'll be botched by the lowest bidder or brownest nose.