We’re three 18 year-olds who passionately believe computing science should be taught to every child. Having just finished school, we have sat national 5, higher and advanced higher computing science, and have noticed many issues with the course, exams and attitude towards the subject. It baffles us that tech contributes so much to the economy and computers are such huge parts in our lives now and yet, it’s not taught as a core subject. To tackle the issue of people losing their jobs to computers, the issue of the gender imbalance in STEM, and the computing skills shortage we are launching a campaign to get computing science taught in primary schools, and to improve the existing computing education in secondary schools across Scotland.
With computer technology and artificial Intelligence exponentially advancing, there is a huge demand for programmers; this is so extreme that ethical hackers are being pulled out of university and straight into work before they’ve even finished their degree. It’s a programming epidemic. Currently there are some 11,000 digital job vacancies every year in Scotland, but only half of these are filled. In schools across Scotland, subjects like English, Music, History, and Art are compulsory throughout education but computing science is not seen to be important enough to be a core subject throughout primary or secondary. Our education system is hopelessly out of date.
In 2011, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said the UK was throwing away its “great computer heritage” by failing to teach programming. Meanwhile, Rowena Arshad, head of the Moray House School of Education at Edinburgh University, called for all children to be taught coding from primary school to a bid to address the issue.
The knowledge gained from programming would significantly develop our problem solving skills, which can be applied to all aspects of life, and all careers. It sounds rather daunting that your children will be learning to code as they learn to read and write. But if we don’t teach them, they’ll be left behind, as computers are beginning to teach themselves. Of course, in the early years, pupils won’t be physically writing programs. Instead, they will practice computational thinking and problem solving, which is a key part in coding. Programming is a skill, like any other, which can be taught and developed; children as young as five can and should be learning how to code.
Everything we do now revolves around coding: your phone, your dishwasher – and even your car is programmed nowadays! More often than not, our jobs require basic IT skills, yet most people can’t even write a simple calculator program. 40% of people in the world having access to a computer and the internet, and yet only a mere 0.12% of people actually know how to code. In the next few decades – or even few years – your jobs will be taken by computers and robots and unless you have any idea how they work, you’ll be out of a job. Coding is a universal language: ones and zeros are understood by every computer. And if we aren’t using it to unite people and countries, we are doing something wrong.
Moreover, although significantly more women go to university than men, far less women study STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects at Higher Education, and fewer women are studying computer science at UK universities than five years ago. According to UCAS figures, in 2014, 13% of UK computer science students were female, compared to 14% in 2010. This is despite huge efforts to balance the genders. Similarly, the percentage of women in computing careers has reduced in the past five years. Only a mere 3% of all IT and computing engineers in the UK are female. In the current climate, this is a disgrace and we must do something about it.
Introducing compulsory coding lessons in school would reduce these gender inequalities, as all genders would be equally encouraged to enter a computing related career. As STEM careers are generally some of the highest paid, this could potentially decrease the average pay gap. In the UK, the best paid women earn 20% less than the highest paid men. However, if women were to level the computing field, this gigantic inequality could be addressed.
Investing in these classes would have huge economic benefits as our country would be fully equipped with computational skills which would attract big companies to Scotland. For example, Grand Theft Auto was initially created in Dundee and it has become a hub for gaming across the world; an increase of skilled technologists would only increase our potential. Scotland has a great innovative history, but children’s creative minds are limited by their knowledge and opportunities. With these compulsory classes, their inventive minds would explore the computational world – leading to new, economically beneficial and life-changing inventions. Currently, we are restricting this potential for growth. The European Commission urged people to learn how to code in 2014 as the lack of coding skills could lead to a shortage of up to 900,000 IT professionals in Europe alone. Coding is the literacy of today: it is the language which can enable the digital revolution, and these classes are the catalyst.
Ultimately, if future generations are not taught to code from a young age, we will struggle to advance our technology – and limit the presence of cyber companies in Scotland. England has already begun implementing coding classes to primary schools; we are going to be abandoned in the dark ages if we don’t join them, stunting a generation by the lack of knowledge. In an attempt to encourage more children to be programmers, Raspberry Pis (computers the size of your credit card) have been given to children across Scotland for free. However, this is completely and utterly useless if nobody actually knows how to use them.
The arguments are compelling. Support our campaign.
READ MORE:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/14388380.display/
http://www.information-age.com/tackling-computer-confidence-school-level-123464711/
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/mar/31/why-kids-should-be-taught-code
http://blog.cie.org.uk/why-teach-computing-to-young-learners/
Teach computing in Schools 
