Thank God August is over. Stories about sharks off Cornwall and scientific conclusions from the Institute of Studies in the Blindingly Obvious and Pointless will now no longer masquerade as news items.

The start of September should also silence the annual press bleatings that improving A-level results are proof that the exams are getting easier.

There are two things wrong with this week-long festival of academic accusations. First, as Peter Wilby explained in The Guardian, the argument that standards are slipping is spurious because papers are comparing results that have come from curricula, exams, and a social context that have necessarily changed over time, making comparisons worthless.

Wilby rightly observes, “The world is changing at unprecedented speed, so why do we want schools to stand still, teaching roughly the same things as 10, 20 or 30 years ago so that we can reliably compare ‘standards’?”

Second, the row over results always serves to distract from the more important debate over what subjects the results are in.

This year was yet another bad one for IT A-levels, with the number of students taking computing falling 10 per cent to 5,610 and entrants for ICT falling six per cent to 13,360.

Apologists may claim that neither of these qualifications are essential for taking IT-related subjects at university or pursuing a technology career, and that the number of students sitting maths A-levels ­ often a requirement for university IT courses ­ has climbed 14 per cent since 2004.

However, these figures remain a failure for a government that has spent millions attempting to promote science and technology as attractive career options. With the exception of a few encouraging case studies, such as the Computer Club for Girls, there is little evidence that the money is working.

The idea that you can catch up at university or in the workplace through better courses and training has some merit, but it is misleading to suggest it can solve the IT skills crisis alone. Attitudes are shaped at an early age and the prevailing attitude towards IT among many school children is that it is a singularly unattractive career option.

Rather than a ridiculous week arguing about whether or not exams are getting easier, we need a serious debate on how we can encourage students to acquire the technical and scientific skills the UK’s economy desperately needs.

Otherwise, businesses will respond to our worsening IT skills shortage by shipping more IT work offshore, taking with it much of the UK’s ability to compete in the knowledge economy.