Coding skills as a success factor for a society

Abstract

Digitalization is one of the most promising ways to increase productivity in the public sector and is needed to reform the economy by creating new innovation related jobs. The implementation of digital services requires problem solving, design skills, logical thinking, an understanding of how computers and networks operate, and programming competence. These abilities can be considered as coding skills. The aim of the study is to find and classify the different approaches and methods of promoting and learning coding skills. In addition, coding initiatives in Finland are analyzed both from both an historical and a present-day point of view. As a result, we identified three different approaches to learning coding skills: 1) in formal settings (schools within the curriculum); 2) in non-formal settings (online, after school clubs); 3) in informal events (hackathons, jams etc.). In many cases, schools are utilizing coding events and materials created by non-profit organizations, governments, or companies. Coding is also learned in after school clubs on robotics or by creating devices using cheap computing hardware such as the Raspberry Pi.