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Tech Leaders Encourage Teaching Schoolkids How To Code

Posted by Soulskill on from the we-need-more-apps dept.

rtoz writes "Code.org has released infographics and a video to explain why students should be taught to code in school. They've gathered support from leaders in politics and the tech industry. Mark Zuckerberg says, 'Our policy at Facebook is literally to hire as many talented engineers as we can find. There just aren't enough people who are trained and have these skills today.' Former U.S. President Bill Clinton adds, 'At a time when people are saying, "I want a good job – I got out of college and I couldn't find one," every single year in America, there is a standing demand for 120,000 people who are training in computer science.' Bill Gates said, 'Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.' Google's Eric Schmidt is looking beyond first-world countries: 'For most people on Earth, the digital revolution hasn't even started yet. Within the next 10 years, all that will change. Let's get the whole world coding!'" Part of the standing demand for computer science jobs may be influenced by bad policies from tech companies, like Yahoo's ban on working from home.

4 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Cheap labor trained with tax dollars by Animats · · Score: 5, Insightful

    More "we want cheap labor trained with tax dollars" whining from industry. If there were a shortage of programmers, salaries would be going up. They're not.

    1. Re:Cheap labor trained with tax dollars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. If there was a shortage, people wouldn't be getting fired for being over 30. People who actually can program wouldn't be blown off for interviews after applying because they didn't have every keyword on their resume. Just more justification for more H1Bs into the country to pay them next to nothing.

    2. Re:Cheap labor trained with tax dollars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      People don't refuse programming jobs because they didn't learn how to do it in grade school.

      People refuse programming jobs because they hate programming, and don't want to deal with the regular long hours, stress, and complete lack of job security that programming comes with.

      Teaching more kids to program won't produce more people who want to do it for a living, but feel free to try.

      Making the job worth learning the skill for, on the other hand, will motivate people (old and young) to self-educate. Of course...that might cost something....

    3. Re:Cheap labor trained with tax dollars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Most people are capable of being programmers, but they aren't capable of being good programmers. Most people just weren't born with the level of intelligence necessary to be such a thing, and evidence of this is everywhere.