As reported by The Guardian, children are growing up as AI natives, yet experts warn that without proper computing skills, society risks a widening “digital divide.”
Philip Colligan, chief executive of the digital education charity Raspberry Pi Foundation, cautioned that there could be a “big split” between those who understand how AI works and can control it, and those who cannot.
“There is a world where you’ve got a big split between kids who have that core knowledge and can assert themselves, and those who don’t,” Colligan said.
His warning was echoed by Simon Peyton Jones, a computer researcher who helped create the UK school computing curriculum in 2014. Peyton Jones called for a new digital literacy qualification for all schoolchildren, designed to ensure that young people know how to use AI systems critically and responsibly.
The call comes amid falling interest in computing at school. Entries for a GCSE in computing dropped across the UK in 2025, while three times as many students took history and nearly twice as many studied biology, chemistry, or physics. At the same time, national use of AI systems surged by 78% in the year to September, according to polling.
Some of the reluctance to learn computing stems from claims by major AI companies that coding may become redundant due to automation. In December, former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, now an AI investor, predicted that “we will move from staring at the internet, to living in the internet.”
Colligan highlighted the social consequences of this gap: “My concern is there will be a gap between kids based on their socioeconomic background. Those who go to well-resourced schools will be in a much stronger position as citizens, whether or not they’re using technology for their job. Kids in communities without access to AI literacy teaching risk being on the receiving end of automated decisions without understanding them.”
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