Code for the future; should coding be compulsory in schools?

The world is evolving by the day and the importance of tech in this tech savvy world cannot be over emphasized. Tech has come to be a very important part of our time today and it would be nice if everyone should be given a chance to have a fundamental taste of tech savviness including the area of coding.

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For someone like me not having such knowledge has been one of the things I wish I hadn’t misssed. It’s in this my old age that I am beginning to learn how to use the computer and learn other relevant applications to it. If I had the opportunity to learn them earlier in life, it would have gone along way to help. I remember that in my third year in the university, I had gone to a brewing company through a connection I got to look for an IT placement.

I was asked to go for an Interview where I was given aptitude tests and some computer tests concerning excel worksheet. I didn’t know anything about those computer applications and that was how I lost that opportunity. If I had earlier been exposed to that technology, I’d probably would have done well for myself even if I don’t have intentions of going into the field of technology.

This is where caution should be taken. A lot of children are wired to do different things and I think when it has to do with the basic knowledge of coding and programming, that may be ok but it shouldn’t be a compulsory thing as many people who are wired differently and may have other interest in arts. Music, science etc may not want to roll that part and in the end, what was meant to help becomes a burden and a course for failure.

Just like how we were guided in secondary schools where we did a general course and in senior secondary, we were allowed to choose whether to go for arts or sciences. Alot of people who didn’t fit into the sciences even from our senior secondary 1 class still felt over burdened with courses like chemistry, physics and biology. They didn't have any interest in them and they did poorly.

If the children are introduced into the basics of coding and programming, I think it should be made flexible enough that they could have the choice to continue or drop and then only the ones who really had it in them or who have a passion for that aspect of career can go ahead with it. In that way, it would be a burden to anyone who wants to or prefers to choose a different part. It’s all about choices, wiring’s and passions.

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