Written by Malish C M and Priyansh Nagpal
Learning “coding” has been a new normal for school children, at least in metro cities and small towns. The parents often dream of their child becoming the next CEO of an IT company after learning coding. But the warning by Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton, Emeritus Professor of Computer Science, University of Toronto, popularly known as the “godfather of AI”, is an eye-opener. According to Hinton, even the survival of the undergraduate degree in computer science has been under threat. The coding jobs will be wholly taken over by AI in the near future. Here, I examine the flaws in the assumption that learning coding makes young minds future-ready.
Policy push for coding skills
According to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, “digital literacy, coding, and computational thinking” are new skills and competencies to be learned by students to survive in today’s “rapidly changing world”. The NEP further states that “activities involving coding” need to be introduced in the middle stage of schooling, from grades 6 to 8. In 2021, during COVID, the Central Board of School Education (CBSE) entered into a collaboration with Microsoft to introduce coding and data science in the curriculum. Later, the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for School Education 2023 introduced “computational thinking” as a subject of study for grades 11 and 12. This approach contrasts with NCF 2005, which criticised “too much emphasis on computation” in the name of mathematics. Going beyond the narrow aim of mathematics to develop “useful” capabilities such as arithmetics, NCF 2005 underscored “mathematisation” as a means to develop “resources to think and reason mathematically, to pursue assumptions to their logical conclusion and to handle abstraction”. It also helps to finely frame problems and solve them independently
Parental obsession with coding
Along with a policy push, success stories of millionaires and billionaires from the IT industry catalysed a new narrative of an aspirational Indian. A few exceptional salary packages from the IT industry for engineers from premier institutes become media headlines every year. The flow of engineers from all branches to IT jobs raises serious questions about the worth of acquiring domain knowledge in core engineering fields. Middle-class parents, however, equate coding with upward social mobility. They believe that learning to code will help their child secure future lucrative jobs.
Growth of the coding industry
Many private schools introduced coding in the early stage of schooling. Coding classes are offered in collaboration with private platforms. One notable example is LEAD, an EdTech organisation that has partnered with over 8,000 private schools in more than 400 cities in India to offer coding through its structured Coding and Computational Skills (CCS) curriculum.
Thus, an entirely new market for coding for children has mushroomed in India. In 2020, WhiteHat Jr, a start-up 20 months old, was taken over by Byju’s, the world’s largest EdTech company. As per one estimate, the coding-for-kids market in India was worth $14 billion. The price of online coding courses generally ranges from Rs 550 per class to Rs 3,72,168 per course, depending on the platform and package selected.
The problem
Whether AI would take over coding or not is not a significant concern. Of course, AI, based on large language models, has its limitations. The middle-class obsession with coding as an investment for their children’s future has been a fertile ground for online platforms and offline franchises to grow exponentially. Policy-level emphasis on computational thinking and coding has fuelled a conducive business ecosystem that promotes coding for children in their early stages of schooling.
Industry leaders like Sam Altman have already cautioned that AI is performing nearly 50 per cent of the coding work in many companies, and the demand for software engineers might decline in the future. While the EdTech industry continues to frame coding as a life skill, voices like that of Professor Geoffrey Hinton predict the opposite. This mismatch between market hype and technological reality makes it urgent to rethink how, when and why coding is to be taught.
We do not suggest that coding and algorithmic thinking are completely useless. However, narrowly defined coding skills primarily serve the business interest of providers instead of the interest of children and the larger society. How do we understand and assess criticality, innovation and creativity? What are the parameters to gauge critical thinking? For instance, good fiction can stimulate minds as much or beyond what coding can do.
We need to recognise that there is much more to education than coding. A false discourse on the nature of future jobs is the invention of the coding industry. If nurturing critical thinking, creativity, and imagination are the goals, the answer lies in the education system we follow. NEP 2020 has made some progressive recommendations. Therefore, we must shift our attention to schooling, pedagogy, curriculum, and teachers rather than coding.
Malish C M is an Assistant Professor at Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies (ADCPS), IIT Bombay. Priyansh Nagpal is a student of Masters in Policy Studies at Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies (ADCPS), IIT Bombay. Views expressed are personal.
