With A-level results appearing up and down the country, the JCQ (Joint Council for Qualifications) has released its reports on attainment, as well as numbers of pupils entering for examinations, with ICT once again falling outside the top ten.
Jane Richardson, director of Oracle Academy EMEA, which provides school-level educational training and materials, called ICT's continuing lack of popularity "disappointing".
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"Just from looking at the data that's come out today, ICT was once again not in the top ten subjects, which is disappointing from an industry perspective given the global skills gap in computer science skills," Richardson told Computing.
But the industry should be looking forward to September 2013, when Michael Gove and the DfE's new curriculum opens the door for more focused, technical teaching:
"We're hopeful that the new September 2013 curriculum, given its new computer science focus, might help in the next couple of years," said Richardson.
"Last year, ICT had a drop in the number of students taking part in it, and I think it's dependent on the industry to continue to promote the benefits of careers in the sector so as students are looking at it as a positive career destination, or as a good subject to have in a wider portfolio of subjects," she added.
Oracle's approach to help plug the skills gap is to increasingly begin offering resources and training "at student" level, as well as the courses - such as its Java teacher training - it already offers to educators.
This will start by releasing various resources from its Alice programming environment - which teaches children coding through producing a storytelling animation - on Oracle's educational websites.
However, while ICT itself continues to be shunned by many school students choosing options, the JCQ's reports do show a rise in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) courses generally.
With students sitting economics rising by 7.45 per cent on last year, chemistry up by 5.25 per cent and further maths increasing by 4.52 per cent, science subjects have seen an overall 0.8 per cent rise in popularity.
But Geoffrey Taylor, head of academic programme at SAS, says this still isn't enough.
"With fierce competition from nations such as China and India, where the level of investment in skills and training is on the rise, we need to ensure we're continuing to stoke the interest of students in technology subjects if we are to compete in the global information economy," said Taylor.
"As revealed in a recent report SAS conducted with e-skills UK, jobs created by big data are forecasted to increase by 18% per year on average between 2012 and 2017," he added.
"The job opportunities are there for the taking, but we cannot be complacent - uptake in the sciences needs to be much higher if home-grown graduates are to fill the current and projected big data skills shortage."
