Tomorrow's innovation driven economy will only thrive if entrants to the work force are Information Technology (IT) literate. The snag is that IT differs from other subjects on the school curriculum in two ways: It's advancing faster than other subjects and in a non-academic way, pupils know more about it than the majority of their teachers. We are also failing to take full advantage of the appeal of computer games to young people, to assist in the all important, but traditionally tedious process of reinforcing learning.

Here are three suggestions for overcoming these problems:

1. All teachers should be allowed tax relief when they purchase selected electronic goods and services for home use, which will make them more confident when incorporating IT into their teaching. For examples, tax relief could be granted on the purchase of PCs, laptop computers, certain software packages and broadband internet access.
2. University students who are IT proficient should, after a short training course, be encouraged to work as paid part-time classroom IT assistants. This will help them to pay their way through university and also improve their communication skills. Universities should be encouraged to offer teaching timetables which fit in with the part time working requirements of such students.
3. Subject panels of teaching experts could be set up who would offer quality ratings for computer games and related leisure software. Software which met a satisfactory educational standard could be classed as learning materials and given a zero VAT rating. This would provide software houses with a strong financial motive to write and market software with a high learning content.