Due to the prevalence of computers, Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III now wants the Department of Education to include teaching code, also known as computer programming, in elementary schools.

Pimentel noted that computer programming is being offered as an “option” in senior high school under the Information and Communications Technology strand of the Technical Vocational Track.

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“Coding is now an essential skill due to the prevalence of computers in our daily lives. It should be treated like reading, writing, and arithmetic, not just as a career option,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

Pimentel, who was a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, explained that coding is a way to introduce to children concepts such as logic and mathematics.

“By teaching code, we can take advantage of children’s fascination with technology to help them learn mathematical concepts in a manner they find entertaining,” he said.

“Coding also teaches perseverance and problem-solving. In writing a computer program, you have to be adept at breaking down tasks into simple problems the computer could understand. 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,” the Senate leader added.

Pimentel said teaching code is also a way to help improve the schools’ performance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics branches.

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

“Also, since many Filipinos own a smartphone and we now have the free wi-fi law, it is easy to download many apps that will help children learn more about programming,” the Senate leader added.

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