Google to help U.K. computer teaching

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LONDON, May 23 (UPI) -- Dozens of computer science teachers will work in British schools thanks to a partnership between Google and the charity Teach First, Google's chairman says.

Without investment in the subject, Britain risked "losing a generation" of scientists, Google's Eric Schmidt said.

Google would provide funds to provide "teaching aids, such as Raspberry Pi's [single-board computers] or Arduino [open-source electronic prototyping platform] starter kits," he said.

"Put simply, technology breakthroughs can't happen without the scientists and engineers to make them," Schmidt said Wednesday at an appearance at London's Science Museum. "The challenge that society faces is to equip enough people, with the right skills and mindset, and to get them to work on the most important problems."

Google is providing funds to Teach First, a charity that puts "exceptional" graduates on a six-week training program before deploying them to schools where they teach classes over a two-year period, the BBC reported.

The funds would be used to train "more than 100 first-rate science teachers over the next three years, with the majority focused on computer science," Schmidt said.

"It's vital to expose kids to this early if they're to have the chance of a career in computing," he said.