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I’m buying the newspaper The Daily Mail at the moment, as they are giving away “Free” CDs, and to justify the whole experience, I am reading some of the articles.

The Daily Mail is the educated man’s Sun, in that it purpotes to be a serious paper, yet a lot of the articles are complete twoddle.

I read an article criticising the Scout Movement for entering the 21st Century for introducing proficiency badges such as Information Technology. More Scouts are acheiving this badge than the traditional skills such as ‘knot tying’. (In truth, there isn’t a single ‘knot tying’ badge, the ability to tie a “Round Turn and Two Half-Hitches” would typically form part of the requirements for another badge).

As a former Scout and Cub Scout leader, I was shocked that the article suggested that the more traditional skill badges were being phased out. However, five quick minutes of research proved this not to be the case. In fact, the IT badge is not a single badge, but five separate ‘staged’ badges.

The Mail criticised the IT badge for having the requirement: “Show that they can switch on and close down a computer safely”. This is the first requirement for the first stage of the badge, which when you consider that the Scouts are for children aged 10-14, they are only beginning to start using a computer unsupervised. The rest of the requirements for that level cover identifying the components of a computer, and using computer software for creative (and Scouting!) purposes.

By stage 5 of the IT badge, Scouts are required to design integrated systems, create websites, have an understanding of copyright law and “Reflect critically on the impact of IT on their own life and that of others – consider political, social, ethical, economic, moral and legal issues”. I’ve not seen the requirements for GCSE IT, but I wouldn’t think these were far behind. At 14, a Scout would only be starting their GCSE years, so stage 5 of the badge is pretty impressive.

And the more traditional badges are still present, from “Camper”, to “Hobbies” (always the easiest badge, IMHO!). The old “Air Spotter” badge, back from the beginning of the scouting movement is still present, and Scouts all have the opportunity to do any of these Proficiency badges, so my faith in the Scout movement is restored. In fact, I’d love to get back involved again… the problem is, that like a Scout stuck between deciding whether to pick “Music” or “Badge Collecting” as his hobby, I seem to have my hands full of hobbies at the moment.

Link to scouting proficeincy badges at ScoutBase