“If I were a French student and I were 10 years old, I think it would be more important to learn coding than learning English.”
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook feels it is important to learn coding than to learn English as a second language for a 10-year-old student. In a recent video interview with French media outlet Konbini, Tim Cook who was touring France, including a meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron, said that coding is the best foreign language that any country student can learn. He said that it is a language where you can talk to 7 billion people in the world.
“If I were a French student and I was 10 years old, I think it would be more important to learn to coding than English. I’m not telling people not to learn English—but this is a language that you can use to express yourself to 7 billion people in the world. I think coding should be required in every public school in the world,” Cook tells Konbini.
Cooks says, “I think that coding should be required in every public school in the world.” “It’s the language that everyone needs, and not just for the computer scientists. It’s for all of us.”
He added that technology is a means of showcasing the creativity. “Creativity is in the front seat; technology is in the backseat. It is sort of the blend with both of these that you can do such powerful things now.”
He also mentioned about the Apple’s programming language ‘Swift’ in the interview and how accessible it is and easy to learn.
This isn’t the first time Cook has talked about the importance of coding in primary schools. In 2016 June, at the Startup Fest, Europe in Amsterdam Tim spoke about the importance of teaching how to code to students at a very young age. He mentioned that “Coding should be a requirement at schools. We are doing our kids a disservice if we are not introducing them to coding.”
According to a recent survey conducted by Glassdoor, more than one-third of the highest paying jobs in the U.S. right now require some form of programming expertise. Cooks statements might hold the truth because there are many programming languages available for serving a suitable purpose and with most of the companies emphasizing on Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things which pretty much makes the future requires a developer to have expertise in various programming languages and not just one.
What do you think about Tim Cook statements? Should programming be taught to students from an early age? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
