The quickest way to becoming a financial delinquent is becoming a spendthrift – one having little regard for financial prudence and concern for the long term, but “living for the moment” and splurging on vain momentary luxuries.

The quickest way of dooming a generation is to leave them becoming only consumers and users of technology rather than also as pioneers of its continual development.

Truly, technology has become so pervasive that virtually nothing isn’t technologically enabled. Technology has become second nature and part of our subconscience. We no longer disregard technology, but imply its usage subconsciously. No need to look far to realise this observation. A quick glance of people and children in public areas reveals, even to a blind disbelieving eye, the extent of technological embedding in our lives.

Frankly, the Fourth Industrial Revolution should not be as hyped up as it is nowadays, as though it is an event or a future occurrence yet to manifest in other people’s lives. The permeability of technology is now the oxygen of our modern lives. We cannot live without it. Like breathing and language, our dependence on technology has become a life and death matter.

Notwithstanding, why then can we still afford to treat coding as a “foreign” concept, only accessible to the “geeky fringe” among us? With such abundance of resources, why then is coding and knowledge of the configuration of technological creations an exclusive reserve of the “connected” few?

We can open the closed “technological-know-how” network to the entire populace. Such act will be good for human development. I understand not everyone will find coding useful or easy to learn, just as Mathematics is still seen by others as a subject not to be compulsory for all. But it would be a travesty of injustice to not expose every learner to coding. Such coding exposure should commence from elementary levels of schooling and to be a required subject throughout all Preparation levels.

We should start creating technological development “stouts” rather than leave our children become obese consumers of technology to the detriment of their physical anatomical development. In this era, we should consider our children disabled if they cannot produce some code, just as a learner would be a remedial case if they cannot hold a pen or draw a corrigible image at a certain age. By Nimroth Gwetsa, 28 February 2019.

By now, it should be clear that we have moved from the stage of justifying the need and use of technology in simplifying and solving problems in our lives to finding advanced ways of deploying it in our lives. If in doubt still, you’re probably a kind of Lazarus, just emerged from a long stay with the dead. The question is no longer “If” and “When”, but “What” and “How”.

The what part is the focus of this article and it is about making coding a mandatory subject at Preparation schooling level.

Coding is “teaching” and instructing a machine or computing device able to run that code, to follow or carry out given instructions having regard to conditions set. Coding would be like learning another language, though spoken and used mainly by machines.

Some may say, we do not even know sign language, yet we are making a fuss about machine language. Well, we can do both. Doing both is not incompatible, and if some insist that it is, then coding should be prioritised, for there are more technological users than there are the deaf among us. The deaf also use technology.

With coding at elementary or preparation phases of schooling, children will gain valuable lessons they will find useful to apply in their adulthood. Among many other benefits, coding will:

• Unlock creativity,
• Enforce situational awareness and attention to detail,
• Encourage collaboration, problem solving and activism,
• Systemically forester analytical, logical and design thinking, and
• Promote investigation and research development.

Coding enables and energises, meaning, it gives one the ability (to do). When one can, one will not be left helpless when faced with difficulties, annoyances and impediments.

With a technologically adept generation of youngsters, many of our social ills will disappear. We may experience different challenges, but low productivity levels will not be among them. Coding is good for human development. We just need to pay more attention to the benefits of enabling every child become a coder. The introspection will justify the need for coding and there would be no need for another to make a case for its considering in the elementary and preparation phase schooling curriculum.

I know, with adults involved, even if we realise that coding at early development stages is justifiable, we will begin to argue about the type, version and platforms of coding needed. Divergent and strongly willed opposing “camps” will begin to emerge, with some advocating using this type and others, that type, with unity nowhere in sight.

It helps formalising structures earlier to avoid experiencing chaos later. But we should equally be open to allow chaos initially as the focus is to get the children adept at coding. In other words, any kind of coding the school can provide or has wider access to its resources, should be welcome. Coding should be treated no differently from the choice of second languages at schools. Considerations can include preference of most of the community, or availability of resources, maturity of the development of that choice and cost among others.

Just as we now understand that there are stages to grief, there should equally be an understanding that we will go through different stages of coding learning grief. And just as it is in life, we will oscillate between chaos and order, and moving from order to chaos, just as an organisation may find centralisation good at a particular time and undesirable at another. The important point is to note what is desirable at any era and knowing what to do to overcome difficulties.

If agreeing, let us then, not wait for authorities to do enable this, but proactively look out for resources we can introduce our children to, to get started with the coding lessons.

The future looks bright only if we exploit technological opportunities now. Join me in raising a glass to life!