[rcat]

Where I come from, students choose subjects they wish to specialise at the age of 12. One of these specialisations was computer studies, which gives basic knowledge of various topics someone working in IT might need. One of these was programming.

It was poorly taught. Half of the class couldn't even figure out loops, they were literally scared of them coming out. They absolutely hated it.

I chose to continue studying this subject at sixth form (basically the local equivalent of high school) and even though we were now taught by engineers and people with doctorates, they were horrible. They just spoon fed us, giving us programs to study by heart. They had no idea of code redundancy, modularity or readability.

These were for students who chose to study the subjects. What the situation would be like if these courses were compulsory.

[DeepDuh]

You raise a very good point here. IMO there should be a big push in the pedagogic branch of CS. It should be a requirement for math teachers to study, just like manual division algorithms. I was lucky to have a math teacher in high school who pushed this subject out of her own will. However in my home country (Switzerland), what we call high school is only visited by about the top 20% of pupils, the others go non academic routes.