Should we learn programming from high school?

Vietnam is facing a shortage of high-quality information technology (IT) human resources. This is a problem that has existed for many years but has not yet had a radical solution.

Programming training time is too short and not properly distributed between levels of study is considered one of the reasons.

To overcome the above limitations, at a recent seminar on digital human resources, many experts proposed to include programming in the general education curriculum, especially high school, to help students access technology early and be ready for the labor market.

According to Dr. Nguyen Thanh Son, former Director of the Department of Education, Central Committee of Science and Education, Vice President of the Vietnam Association of Educational Psychology, Vietnamese people are very intelligent, but paradoxically, Vietnam is famous for its cheap human resources.

“Vietnamese youth are strong and powerful but only earn 5-7 million VND/month. In technology companies, each worker only needs a table of about 2 square meters and a computer to write software, and their productivity is equal to hundreds of ordinary workers. It is time for Vietnam to have a human resource that is not cheap but must be of high quality,” Dr. Nguyen Thanh Son hopes.

Sharing his views on this issue, Mr. To Hong Nam, Deputy Director of the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Education and Training, said that in order to have quality input for university level, it is necessary to equip high school students with knowledge, thinking and skills in mathematics, STEM, and programming.

According to the Deputy Director of the Department of Information Technology, young people with capacity and aspirations can receive early career guidance from high school. This helps them to participate in the labor market right after finishing high school.

From the perspective of a training unit, Mr. Chu Tuan Anh, Director of Aptech Vietnam, said that in developed countries such as the US, UK, and Korea, students have mastered some programming technologies such as Python and Java before entering university.

Vietnamese students only have a very short time in 4 years of university to learn programming, while most of the time is spent on general and basic subjects.

"Expecting Vietnamese students to master new technologies in such a short training period is impossible," said Mr. Tuan Anh.

As one of the first people to introduce programming skills into high school, Mr. Hoang Van Luoc (Multi-Intelligence High School) believes that the young generation of Vietnam needs to grasp and quickly approach technology, especially AI and Big Data.

"From now on, we must introduce technology and programming subjects into high school. After 3 years of study, students will have a high school diploma, and they can even go to work right away to earn money to support their families," said Mr. Luoc.

In fact, introducing programming into the high school curriculum not only helps solve human resource problems but also brings many benefits to students.

As a parent who let her child learn programming since grade 10, Ms. Huong (Hanoi) was initially very worried and confused, not knowing if her child could follow the program or not, and if not, how to change course.

However, she breathed a sigh of relief when she finished high school, her daughter passed the graduation course in programming, and also passed the entrance exams to domestic universities.

Sharing her family story, she said that in 3 years of high school, her daughter has changed a lot. Learning programming helps young people have a programming mindset, from there studying all other cultural subjects in a very scientific way.

“Learning programming also helps children develop the mindset to write essays and CVs that will convince future employers. Programming thinking is not only useful for young people in their work and study, but also useful in their future lives, especially when they need to make decisions,” said Ms. Huong.

In general, experts agree that including programming in the high school curriculum is a feasible and necessary solution to address the shortage of high-quality IT human resources in Vietnam.

This not only helps students have a solid foundation of digital knowledge and skills, but also opens up many new opportunities for them when entering the labor market.