Programming for schoolchildren: new demanded professions and business requests

Do schoolchildren need to strive to enter Baumanka? Or is it enough to take programming courses to become extremely in demand in the labor market in your region and take a unique niche? The technician of the greenhouse Natalya Baranova talked with experts and found out why it is necessary to introduce an IT education in schools, and how this direction is developing in Russia.

The sooner the better

The programmer is the profession of the future. The creators of educational schools and IT specialists are convinced of this . Therefore, the sooner the teenager masters programming skills, understand how the technologies work from the inside, the more opportunities will open before him.

“Programming skills will be in demand, despite the fact that now simple work is automated and transmitted to robots . Yes, we will face new challenges, but someone should also create “smart” houses, and programming robots. This will be engaged in human , ” says Daria Abramova, the producer of the Kodababa Children 's School of Programing .

Anna Ladushkin agreed with the expert, the web designer, the head of the assistance to NPO Social Technologies. “Without knowledge of programming, at least the basic one, it will be difficult for a person in the near future even in household matters,” Ladoshkina said.

“Programming already occupies enough place in people's lives. A school is needed in order to give the child the opportunity to navigate in the world and understand what is “it”, which path should you choose. Children should have an idea about him along with biology, drawing and other objects. ” Anna Ladushkin.

Experts are confident that you can start seriously for children to start programming in grades 7-9. According to the co -founder of the HTML Academy platform Alexei Simonenko , the main problem of learning is that the attention of children is difficult to keep for a long time. “Given this feature, it is better to choose the format of short games. At the same time, it is also important to interest the process, for example, proposing to create your own game. The Scratch program is ideal for these purposes, ”the expert is sure.

For example, in Kodabre is taught only in the form of a game. Children themselves program games, cartoons and robots, starting from 7 years old. “These are simple games that do not compete with the game industry,” Daria Abramova explained. “At the same time, the project assembled is impressed by the young creator and involves programming and studying technologies.”

“Classes develop logical and critical thinking in children, communication skills and work in the team, teach to share a great task in the subtasks and plan actions.” Daria Abramova.

What specialists are needed now

Today there is no need to write complex programs from scratch. You will not surprise anyone with this skill. All because a huge amount of computer code of finished programs has already been posted into free access. According to the director of marketing of the services of Yandex, Andrei Sebrand , now a niche of specialists who will be able to adapt the program for the work of a particular business.

“ Thousands of programmers in few large organizations write a large universal code. And then in dozens and hundreds of thousands of small companies, one or two priest programmers are enough to adapt this code to the needs of a particular business, ”explains Sebrand. “And such guys will always be needed in the field - they do not have to chase go to Baumanka (Moscow State Technical University named after AD Bauman - ed. ) Or go to work in Yandex.”

“You can become in demand and immediately after school at home. Even with many of our tasks that seem fantastic (for example, to teach a neural network to write music similar to Bach music) can handle a third -year student. ” Andrey Sebress.

According to the expert, such IT personnel will be precisely in demand in the next 10-15 years. The preparation of future programmers is engaged in Yandex.litsa . His free program has already been launched by Kaluga, Penza, Saratov and Tambov and designed for children of grades 8 and 9. Schoolchildren work in Python . Andrei Sebress believes that it is this language that will be used more often than others to work with self -learning systems or machine learning.

How the sphere develops

In Russia, according to experts, not as much attention is paid to the boiling of programming as we would like. “Unfortunately, now a priority, for investing money in training, is preparation for the exam, so almost all schools and courses are focused on this. Schools of programming or robotics can be counted on the fingers. I would say that, unlike the West, in our country, this market is only emerging , ” Alexei Simonenko shared observations.

Moreover, Russian IT companies are not yet ready to support and act sponsors for conducting such courses.

“This is a predictable situation , because the planning horizon in companies in Russia is no more than 5 years, and often less. It makes no sense to invest in schoolchildren. Most often I hear that we are doing the “right business” with the “right approach” in the training and involving children in the IT industry. At the same time, they indicate that they have programs for students and this is enough , ” Abramova noted regretfully.

The expert also believes that computer science lessons in schools need to be transformed into more modern classes. “Often teachers teach in outdated programs and languages ​​that do not cause any interest in the child if he is not motivated independently,” says Daria Abramova.

Despite all the difficulties in recent years, many startups have appeared in Russia. Most of the projects are commercial, but there are those who work on a free basis and are trying to make classes on programming affordable for most adolescents.

For example, free courses for schoolchildren are organized by the St. Petersburg project "Eco Game Jam" . The project coordinator Ilya Rogovenko admitted that the main goal is to captivate ordinary guys from the street. In February 2017, along with like -minded people, he opened classes in which schoolchildren in teams learn to make computer games and receive prizes for this. According to Rogovenko, such team competitions should be in every city in the country, but now there are not many of them.

Also, free programming classes are conducted by Kodabra and Yandex.litsa , The company CROC founded the IT Solutions School , and the IT school from Samsung has been launched in 20 cities of Russia .

Moreover, in the fall of 2017, educational events will be held in different cities of the country: hackathons, lectures or master classes on the topic of programming. Any NPO can get funding for such an event. To do this, you need to apply for participation in the MEET and CODE initiative until September 15 . The selection of applications and coordination of funded projects in Russia will be carried out by a greenhouse of social technologies.