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Why Promoting Coding Education is Important

By Hugh Fort in News Stories, posted October 7, 2022

As the world becomes increasingly digitized, it’s vital that young people are picking up the skills required to keep our national and global systems moving.

Computer coding and programming have already become vital skills in modern society, but this is not necessarily reflected in education across the nation.

Where is coding used?

Pretty much… everywhere. Think about how you live your life every day.

If you drive a car, use a cell phone, pay for groceries with a credit card, work on a laptop computer or use machinery in a factory – all of these devices and systems are underpinned by computer programming in the modern world.

Every time you watch a movie on Netflix, send a text message, or flag down a cab – you will be doing so using programs developed using reams of computer code.

At what age can kids learn coding?

It may surprise you to learn that children can pick up coding skills at a seriously young age.

While they may not be rolling out reams of Python language script early on, kids as young as 4-6 years old can spot and work around the kind of patterns that underpin how coding works.

There are a number of educational-focused devices and programs that introduce coding to children by getting them to think about the world around them. By applying patterns in the form of colored blocks or simple numbered instructions, children will soon build up the skills used by coders and programmers every single day.

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Where can kids learn coding?

There has been a huge recent push to cement computer science’s place on the curriculum at schools across the United States, with big-name backing from titans of the online world including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and former Microsoft chief Bill Gates.

This will hopefully see computer science classes rolled out across the country and provided to every child as part of their K-12 education.

Many schools across the country already provide these classes, while other organizations offer coding lessons through extra-curricular classes.

What future jobs use coding skills?

If you have children and want to think about their future employment prospects, computer science is set to remain a key sector of the country’s labor market in years to come.

There is currently a shortage of programmers and developers across the world and at home – a situation which is not expected to necessarily improve as today’s children reach adulthood.

If your kids have an interest in computers and coding, boosting these skills could set them up for serious success in the future. With a shortage of labor for these jobs, many developer roles are very well-paid – another key consideration when pushing for your children to receive computer science classes in school.

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