Aussie Prime Minister thinks coding is a joke | Hacker News Reader

Aussie Prime Minister thinks coding is a joke

codehire.com

23 pointsladyoflight22 comments

A great example of how to take something someone said and make an almost completely BS article from it in order to generate links.

Here is the ACTUAL QUOTE:

"Let’s just understand exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has asked. He said that he wants primary school kids to be taught coding so they can get the jobs of the future. Does he want to send them all out to work at the age of 11? Is that what he wants to do? Seriously? Seriously?"

He didn't say coding was a joke. He simply seems to think that it doesn't need taught to someone that isn't going to take a job that needs it and that at 11 years old your career isn't a concern. Understandable. Maths and English will be required no matter what you go in to. Coding not so much. Coding will teach you useful skills of course but imo you already get these through things like Maths which has a wider application for everyone. Especially for primary school aged kids.

That makes a world of difference. I see his point, I also think 11 is too early to make programming a requirement. I'd prefer to see algorithmic thinking and logic to be introduced earlier as a subtopic of math courses and if using programming as the exercises makes that easier then I think it makes sense to try. How about starting at higher ages and seeing if it can trickle down.

I think that basic coding literacy WILL be required if you want to be fully functional in 10-20 years.

I can't imagine this being the case. You will never need to know how to program, at any point in the future, to use anything anyone else has programmed.

I strongly disagree. We should be making software easier to use and make it require less technical ability. This has been the direction things have been heading for the last 10-20 years and it seems to be accelerating. I see no reason why it should reverse.

Coding can be used to give a context for other skills, logic most obviously but also things like ethics ("When is it right to use the code of others?") and persuasive writing and speaking ("Convince me you have a good program."/"Does this person's claims of having a good program convince you?"). (Persuasive speaking, BTW, is what the ancients called rhetoric, and it's always been part of the liberal education.)

True but why introduce another course and have to train teachers in a new skill set when we can teach these skills through the basic courses that have been taught for decades. It sounds like your plan would introduce complexity where it is not needed.

I don't think that what he was saying at all. There's a whole world of difference between if we should be teaching kids to code at 11? And calling it a joke.

It could be argued that kids should be receiving a liberal arts education at that age and not hard job skills. Education for educations sake, and inciting curiosity.

Not that I agree with him.

> It could be argued that kids should be receiving a liberal education at that age and not hard job skills.

They motivate each other, and build on each other. Admittedly, some more than others, but I firmly think that math and logic are part of the liberal education, just as much as ethics and rhetoric and a knowledge of art, and those are easy to apply in this context.

Divorcing "trade school" from "liberal school" or whatever you want to call it at that age is wrong, because at that basic level it's easy to tie at least parts of them into each other.

"math and logic are part of the liberal education" Those subjects defiantly are. But it isn't coding.

The idea being that those subjects are general subjects you will use everywhere. Coding will require those skills to build upon them. Coding is likely to be used for more specific situations. If you have logic and maths nailed down, you should pick up coding easily.

My point is that coding can be used to help teach logic and math.

In my experience most of these coding schools initiatives are mostly about creating web apps and mobile apps and so on.

If people are talking about programming and "jobs skills" in the same sentence, generally that's what they're talking about. Not general computational thinking.

I think it is extremely unfortunate that teaching children how to program is usually marketed as a way of teaching job skills. Programming can be an empowering medium of creative self-expression and intellectual exploration, and this should be where we place the emphasis when we introduce children to computers. Programming is wonderful because computers can do anything we can explain, and in writing programs we can learn more deeply about anything from visual composition and color theory to poetic structure.

We don't need a society where everyone is a software engineer, but I would like to live in a society where typing on a keyboard is no more unusual in an art class than using a brush or a pencil.

I think it's possible that some form of 'digital literacy' might make sense for all to learn in school, although I'm skeptical of our (US) school system's ability to execute it well.

I'm a software engineer, and I don't believe that "coding" is a necessary specific skill for all people to learn. I certainly believe that lots of people could learn it, love it, and benefit from it, but to declare it specifically as a skill that every last person must have seems like too broad of a position to take to me. I think we should present it positively as a choice for those interested and inclined, and let the students decide how interested they are.

When you let students decide for themselves, it's remarkably transformative. There is a lot of hand-wringing, but it appears they make reasonable decisions, and importantly they are suddenly hugely invested in learning and their future. They feel in control. It helps make learning fun, as it should be. Instead of dictating choices, perhaps we should let the 11 year old decide. Many of them may choose code, even at 11 or earlier. Others will choose what is right for them, and when.

Well, first I wondered, but the key sentence to this article is this:

> "if the Labor party should win government they would introduce coding and digital technologies training in Primary Schools"

Opposition to that plan is understandable I think...

"Technologies training" in primary school is not necessary, and i doubt that it will be of any benefit. If I would have been confronted with "computer tech"-courses in primary school, I sure-as-hell would not have developed any enthusiasm for this topic in the first place...

(Most) kids at that age lack the ability of abstraction that is nessesary to understand this topic.

On the contrary, I was fortunate enough to be taught LOGO in primary school on an Apple II, and I attribute a lot of my interest in computers, robotics and mathematics to that early exposure. I still have extremely fond memories of those learning experiences.

I'm Australian, for reference, and I believe that kids should certainly be exposed to coding from an early age - it assists in problem solving, and we certainly need more skilled problem solvers in our society.

It probably depends on the way the teaching is done. My interest for mathematics for example has developed at the university, before that, I literally 'hated' it, an that is mostly the fault of bad teachers, not the subject itself. So yes you have a point there.

The power given to the mining industry in Australia has really poisoned the country in more than one way.

My friend studying in Australia ( Perth ) constantly complains about how his only option is to work for some mining company as Australia has no viable industry outside of it.

Its great if you want to get into mining though.

I lived and worked in Perth and that is mostly true... almost half the city work in some mining related thing.

But come on... Perth was a pretty small 15 years ago for what I've heard and it has become one of the best places to live in the planet thanks to mining. So I don't think you can complain about it.

If you go to Sydney or Melbourne there are lots of other job options.

Isn't that a bit a sensational headline? A bit too exaggerated for my taste. Here is what he (Tony Abbott) seems to have said: "Let’s just understand exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has asked. He said that he wants primary school kids to be taught coding so they can get the jobs of the future. Does he want to send them all out to work at the age of 11? Is that what he wants to do? Seriously? Seriously?"

The bias of this post from such a company is clearly not obvious.

This was written in poor taste and completely out of context, similar to Yahoo click-bait articles.

It does chime in with the HN rhetoric of "everyone must code", but definitely still written in poor taste.

Everyday I wonder how the heck Tony Abbott even came into power. The LNP are so backwards when it comes to technology, if they had their way schools would be teaching us to use a typewriter instead of a computer. This is just embarrassing, the rest of the world are laughing at Australia as our PM and his cohorts drag us back into the stoneage. Worth pointing out is the title is a little sensationalist and inaccurate as Tony didn't say specifically coding is a joke, but Tony's arrogance and sarcasm to me signals that he sees coding as a joke and not a viable industry that Australia should capitalise on for the future. We're talking about a guy who lets his religious beliefs get in the way of passing a bill to allow same sex couples to marry.

Currently Australia is having some issues. A little while ago we hit a natural resources boom where the price of iron ore in particular (once one of our biggest exports) dropped so low that it has cost thousands of people their jobs and in turn has had a flow-on effect felt through the mining industry. The sad thing is, Tony Abbott seems to be stuck in this old mindset of Australia must export natural resources and beef, when we should be teaching children how to code.

As a self-taught developer who has always had an interest in computers and coding, I wish when I went to primary school they taught basic coding in the higher grades (maybe 6 and 7). Funnily enough, my primary school actually had some visual basic programming books I would go to the library and lunch time, read and then hire out to experiment with at home. I was reading these in grade 3 onwards, even though a lot of it went over my head, I wanted to learn and nobody but myself to help me understand it.

As everything becomes more automated and unskilled blue collar positions are replaced with driverless vehicles and bricklaying robots, moving towards a technology industry position makes sense.

But there is a problem. We teach kids to code and then what, they get to use a sub-par internet infrastructure in the form of the LNP's NBN. A few years ago when Kevin Rudd was the PM he introduced the NBN (National Broadband Network) which was to be a fibre to the home internet infrastructure to help move Australia into the future. Sadly the LNP came into power and the claimed Labors plan was too expensive and they had a better plan, which was fibre to the node.

A less sexy and future proof network that still relies on copper for the last mile or so to the users house from a junction box. The kicker is the minimum expected average speed will be 25mb, still better than I currently get, but a laughable speed compared to many parts of the world (including New Zealand).

Things are pretty dire here. Some parts of the developed world have gigabit internet connections now, yet I can't even get decent speeds to stream Netflix in standard quality and I live 12 kilometers from the main CBD.

We are stuck in the past. The good old days of the mining boom are behind us, experts are saying things will never be as good as they at the peak of the mining boom when one tonne of iron ore could fetch almost $200 per tonne, now it's like $40.

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