A report from the Royal Society has found that more than 54% of England’s secondary schools did not offer GCSE computer science in 2015-16.

The report has urged the government to increase computer education through buying IT materials, to ensure students can gain the full potential of new technologies.

The report found the main issue was lack of skilled teachers.

The Department for Education said more pupils have begun choosing the subject.

A spokesperson said to the BBC: “We want to ensure our future workforce has the skills we need to drive the future productivity and economy of this country and that is why the government made computing a compulsory part of the national curriculum.

“Computer science GCSE entries continue to rise more quickly than any other subject.

“We recently saw an increase in entries to Stem subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths for the English Baccalaureate) and the number of girls taking Stem subjects at A-levels has increased by over 17% since 2010.

“Since 2012, the department has pledged £5million to the Network of Teaching Excellence in Computer Science programme, which has built a national network of nearly 400 computer science specialists.”

Written by Leah Alger