When most parents start curating extracurriculars for their children, they start with the basics: soccer, dance, music etc. Their first idea for entertaining their high school child probably doesn’t include digital skills and coding. But should it?

In recent years, the question of why kids should learn to code has spread like wildfire among parenting groups and educational centers. Job opportunities are scarce and the jobs available are mostly being computerized. In our increasingly digital world, parents want their kids to become computer-literate — and why wouldn’t they? Learning to code doesn’t just set students up for career opportunities later on in life; it also provides a host of soft skills and benefits that we will cover later in this article. But when should they start learning?

As it turns out, most professional developers started learning their trade early in life. According to Stack Overflow’s 2020 Developers survey, over 35% of professional developers started coding at the age of 12. For this reason, ITEBS Academy has launched a program that incorporates digital skills into the learning curriculum, giving your students the skills to build and deploy professional softwares and solutions before they even get out of high school.