Code learning should be mandatory

I have just written an article on why Twitter is loosing its popularity last week and this week as if Gods wanted to prove me wrong, the hashtag “coding should be mandatory at the primary schools” was trending topic for hours. I wrote before that because of trolls and the negative aspects of citizen journalism, the user base of Twitter was in decline and that it did not generate revenues that we all thought it could in the last years. 

Having such a positive hashtag among all that is happening in the political and the sporting circles, is like a breath of fresh air. It means that there are lots of people who are still connected to the rest of the world, and who demand to be a part of the future that the developed nations are building. 

As Jordan Shapiro wote for Forbes: President Obama just unveiled his “Computer Science for All Initiative.” Following up on the State of the Union Address, in which he announced his intention to offer “every student the hands-on computer science and math classes that make them job-ready on day one,” the initiative includes $4billion in funding for states and $100Million directly for districts to increase hands-on K-12 computer science instruction.

“We live in a time of extraordinary change,” President Obama explained in his weekly address, “change that’s affecting the way we live and the way we work. New technology replaces any job where work can be automated.  Workers need more skills to get ahead.  These changes aren’t new, and they’re only going to accelerate.  So the question we have to ask ourselves is, ‘How can we make sure everyone has a fair shot at success in this new economy?’” The answer, according to the President, is coding and computer science education.

Since no one among the authorities talked about learning to code and there is absolutely no government incentive to do so, the popularity of the hashtag is purely driving from the demand that people have. Just think how this demad could turn into a movement if government was pushing for it as well. 

When I looked into the tweets in detail I could understand why people wanted to make coding mandatory. People want to learn to code because they sense that our country will be left behind if we don’t increase the number of coders many folds very quickly. Thousands of tweets were mentioning that the future belongs to those who can write codes. Also a great many of them was referring to the Fatih project. They wrote that the computers and the clever boards that we have spent more than 8 billion dollars in total are being used to watch movies instead of teaching kids how to code. 

I wanted to contribute to this campaign by writing about it in my column and urging managers of Ministry of Education to listen to people. I hope that there will be a time when I will be write about how mandatory coding classes helped Turkey to have more successful entrepreneurs and and a workforce ready for Indusrty 4.0.