I think programming is less essential than literacy and numeracy, agreed. But there are plenty of subjects that do not lead directly to jobs, drama and history being obvious examples. The point I would make is that the more people who get taught programming at school, the more people who are available in the workforce who can program. Programming is better paid than most other jobs. The skills attract foreign investment. Why would this be a bad thing?
Yes there are many subjects that do not lead to jobs, but it was suggested that programming should be taught as a fundimental subject, allongside english and maths. Most subjects you can drop when you're 16 and take the things that not only intrest you, but should be relevant to your job. When I was 15, we did 1 hour a week of history, and 3 hours a week of maths.
Being a lawer is well payed, I'd never do it and it isn't getting taught in school. And they only attract jobs now because not many people can do it, if every graduate could program to a reasonable level, salleries would go down and the number of people unemployed with these skills would go up.
