Programming in Russia will be introduced from primary school

One of the tasks of the children's programming course on Code.org. On the right - a program in the language Blockly

According to the proposal of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, the basics of creating codes and programming languages ​​will be included in the course of mathematics for younger students, Izvestia writes . This is provided by the concept of teaching the subject area "Technology".

True, the concept still needs to be approved and submitted to the Federal State Educational Standard (GEF). It is expected that this will be done during 2019, and programming lessons will appear in the primary school from the 2020–2021 school year, said Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Education Viktor Basyuk.

Probably, the new GEF will lay out for public comment. Then the details will become known, at what time in elementary school they will start learning programming and from what class. It is no secret that modern children from the age of 3–4 are mastering computers and other complex computing devices at the household level. There are several "children's" programming languages, specifically designed to teach children in a fun and playful way.

The concept of "Technology" provides not only the basics of programming in primary school, but also the use of a computer when studying all subjects from the first class : typing, searching for information on the Internet, animation, working with data (for example, searching for information in tables and restructuring them).

Independent experts spoke favorably about this initiative. They only point to the insufficient qualifications of teachers, who in terms of computer literacy are often inferior to schoolchildren, and sometimes even first-graders.

There are critics. Sergey Komkov, President of the All-Russian Education Fund, referred to a series of studies that introducing children to computers can slow down the development of figurative thinking and reduce creativity. There is also a risk that gadgets will cause excessive interest in children and interfere with the balanced development of the personality. According to the WHO standard, children in primary school are recommended to stay at the screens (computer, telephone, TV) for no more than 45 minutes a day.

In the meantime, the Ministry of Education is considering other options for modernizing the school system , including the computerized state examination, online lessons in rural schools and the study of robotics in the classroom.