Make pupils code, DepEd urged

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BY PRINCE GOLEZ
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Thursday, December 7, 2017
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MANILA – The Department of Education was pressed to include computer programming in the new elementary education curriculum.

The subject is currently offered in senior high school as an elective under the K-12 program.

“Coding is now an essential skill due to the prevalence of computers in our daily lives,” Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III. “It should be treated like reading, writing and arithmetic, not just as a career option.”

Coding helps children develop logical thinking, too, he said.

Teaching them coding would enable schoolchildren to understand and appreciate mathematical concepts due to their “fascination with technology,” said Pimentel, who has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.

“Coding also teaches perseverance and problem-solving,” he said.

“In writing a computer program, you have to be adept at breaking down tasks into simple problems the computer could understand,” Pimentel added. “You also need to be patient to identify and correct bugs in the code. These are life skills that would benefit anyone in any field.”

Teaching code in schools should not be difficult, said the senator. “We don’t need state-of-the-art computers to learn the basics. We can use open-source software … to keep costs down.”/PN
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