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Education Reform Act - National Curriculum introduced - development of educational computing low priority - IT was not a separate subject but a section of Design Technology

This report is concerned with aspects of the work undertaken by the Microelectronics Education Programme (MEP), which was established by the Department of Education and Science (DES) in 1980. The Programme initially had a budget of £12 million spread over four years, but the Programme was later extended by two years and spent over £23 million in the course of its life. The report is based on the evidence obtained during the period 1983 to 1986. In this period HMI sought to identify the extent to which schools were able to respond to the opportunities and challenges of working with new information technology (IT), and to assess the influence of the MEP. In the course of the survey visits were made to over 350 educational institutions in England. This report also draws on information from over 200 others where computing work had been observed in the course of normal visiting. In addition a variety of MEP committees and in-service training sessions was attended and numerous MEP-funded materials were reviewed. The work of pupils with special needs and of the Special Education aspects of the MEP is commented on only briefly, in view of the more limited evidence available during the main part of the survey.