Is School Programming Class Enough?

Since programming education became compulsory in elementary schools in 2020, the reality is that most schools offer only a few hours per year, focused on basic visual programming experiences. That alone is not enough to reach a level where a child can truly "program."

Even the Ministry of Education itself has stated that the purpose of school programming education is not to "develop coders," but to cultivate "computational thinking — the ability to think logically." For that limited goal, school classes do provide some benefit.

For children who want to go deeper or aspire to become engineers, extracurricular activities are necessary. Options include: free after-school programming classes run by local NPOs, self-study using free online tools like Scratch, home learning with beginner Python books, and participating in competitions (U-22, paiza, etc.).

The key is the transition from "learning at school" to "creating on your own." The amount you learn by building things is many times greater than classroom instruction.