I should have done my homework. It appears you are "a 35 year old computer consultant working on Energy Management Systems".

Which explains why you understand SQL statements, but not why you insist that the rest of the world should understand them too.

The question at issue here is not that programming is a useful skill, but whether taxpayers should fund a project to teach everyone to program.

Chris Abood is promoting the view that the ACS project - itself a masterpiece of vagueness and waffle - is somehow going to benefit Australia. The ACS is predominantly an academic body with only a passing acquaintance with business life, so it is understandable that their arguments are also academic, as opposed to useful.

It is equally understandable, of course, that they should promote stuff that increases the demand for lecturers.

I assumed, when you approached the topic from a similarly other-worldly manner, that you belong in their company. And when you go on to tell me you spend your time tracking down overcharges in a billing system, that you perhaps make a living from bookkeeping.

But instead, you are a programmer.

As such, you probably haven't noticed that the average ten year-old has more "IT literacy" than the average thirtyfive year-old. Investing in a programme to train teachers to help the average ten-year-old become "IT literate" is an utter and complete waste of time, energy and money.

The ACS proposal is no more than a self-serving attempt to justify its existence to the political system. In common with its 2004 attempt to put lipstick on the same pig - by raising the prospect of wholesale offshoring of Aussie jobs - it lacks a grasp on reality. Jobs are lost overseas to highly qualified competition, not to school-leavers with a grasp of Basic.

Meanwhile I have precisely the level of IT literacy that I need to perform my job, thank you. When I feel the need to check through the company's invoices, I am fortunate to have a system that performs this task without the need for me to write a program.

When my son got his first computer he was five and had to come to grips with MS DOS, which over the following few years he became quite knowledgeable about without any help other than a few books.

In comparison my youngest daughter probably has no idea about MS DOS but she is able to operate her computer just fine. As her interests grow she takes on what she needs to know likewise from books.

For myself I contracted a computer graphics designer to do some work for me only to be disappointed with the results and rather emptied of pocket. So without any computer graphics skills I initially purchased software that did a lot of the work for me. As I wanted to gain more control I purchased other software and with the help of books with tutorial CD’s and time spent experimenting have become quite proficient with the industry popular computer graphics software. I now sell those skills on the side and for a lot less than the computer graphics designer I contracted. One thing I learnt was that the hours I was charged for weren’t worked.

What I like about kids on computers is that they aren’t afraid. For them it isn’t a mystery but rather an adventure. Take away the mystery and you take away a lot of the relevance that so many older people in the computer industry have relied on for income. My advice is get use to it. If you’re are at the top of your game and meeting the market then you’ll do well. If not, then you might need to get in touch with the real world. Stop looking to frighten parents into thinking that their kids are going to be left behind if they don’t learn to programme at school.

Very true Valerie. I am in my early twenties, and have used computers all my life. I have no need of programming skills, I am an end-user, and considered quite proficient with the 'finer points' of Word and Powerpoint, which is all I need. Kids don't need separate IT classes- they use computers in almost everything. My mother is a primary school teacher, and her classes use computers every day.

Also, people CAN convert their industry skills into teaching if they wish. To teach High School only requires a one-year bachelor of education, and I have recently learnt, that in Victoria at least, that a one year 'conversion' course can be taken to become a primary school teacher. That is hardly a big committment.

That said, the most useful thing I learnt at high school, in the uber-boring IT classes (where, as a general rule, the kids were streets ahead of the teacher in terms of comfort with the technology), was the old-fashioned skill of touch-typing. So long as this is being taught to primary/early high school kids, then their natural curiosity, and comfort with the idea of technology will ensure that they will not struggle in the average workplace at all.

Laurie

My younger kids hated touch typing class but then I told them they would never be considered uber-micro if they didn't get stuck in so they knuckled down (so to speak).

heh, it was boring. But proved very useful when it came to doing uni essays at the last minute!

Response to the quaint ideas of Pericles:

It appears to me that your entire approach to this topic is to pigeonhole and categorise. You describe "academics" as those having automatic presumptions and with useless ideas. Users are "mere users". Software would be perfect if only all programmers had "pride in their work". The ACS is "self-serving", because it has a view you question. The halmarks of somone with prejudiced views - I hope I am wrong about that.

The PC revolution is 25 years old (give or take.) The idea that 10 year olds are better with computers than 35 year olds is a myth. And even if you doubt that, those 10 year olds will eventually become 35 year olds. Why would a person born in 1995 have better computer skills than someone born in 2005?

People do need to understand something of how their society and economy operates, and electronic processing/information technology has taken and will take further a large part of that operation. If education is to mean something, then it should address this in an effective way.

If we agree that students should continue to be given a classes in adding and subtracting numbers (as opposed to being taught how to use a calculator), the same princple applies that students should be taught how information processing instructions, rather than taught how to use office software.