“Government announcement on August 22: Good coding makes it easier to go to college”
Kim, 41, an office worker living in Seoul, recently received an advertisement for a coding class at a private academy.
This advertisement conveyed the news that the government decided to increase the number of hours for school information classes and increase the number of digital-related departments at universities, introducing coding education as if it were connected with university admissions.
Kim said, “When the government announces something, private academies often use it for anxiety marketing like this.” “If coding education becomes mandatory from elementary school, eventually there will be one more academy that parents have to worry regarding.”
According to the education industry on the 27th, the private education market related to coding (computer language) is already booming.
Previously, the government announced the ‘Comprehensive Plan for Nurturing Digital Talents’ with the main contents of nurturing digital experts and strengthening the digital literacy of the general public.
Among them, it includes doubling the number of information classes in elementary and middle schools, making coding classes mandatory, and easing regulations so that universities can easily increase the number of ‘high-tech departments’.
Private education companies immediately started marketing in the form of an advantage when coding from the early childhood years.
As software (SW) education became mandatory in schools in 2018, there is a view that the craze for coding classes that occurred in hagwons will be once once more.
Coding academies teach elementary school students ‘block coding’ that is not difficult and can be accessed like a game, and middle and high school students teach programming languages Python, C, and Java.
The tuition fee varies depending on the age group and course, but is usually between 200,000 and 500,000 won per month.
The Ministry of Education issued an explanatory material to the point that there might be such a side effect of private education, and said, “We will do our best to ensure sufficient opportunities for high-quality digital education within the entire education system, from elementary and secondary education to higher and lifelong education, so that there is no additional burden of private education. “he said.
However, parents mentioned that the government has recently been focusing on high-tech policies such as software and semiconductors, and pointed out that information subjects, like major subjects such as English and mathematics, will put a burden on parents for private education.
If there is no certainty that high-quality information classes will be provided at school sites, and if classes are directly related to evaluation, pressure on private education will inevitably increase.
A 38-year-old office worker raising four and six-year-old children said, “The current generation of parents, unless they majored in (computer), often has the skills to teach children coding at home or help them with middle school-level classes. not,” he pointed out.
He said, “As the importance of information classes grows, more children can attend coding academies from an early age. You have to think,” he said.
/yunhap news
