FARMINGTON -- Students and staff witnessed a statesman at work on Friday as Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson promoted the introduction of Computer Science into Arkansas high school curriculum.
This concept was one of Hutchinson's foundational campaign promises he has made good on with the state Legislature passing a law at his request to implement the new public policy.
"In all the United States, they anticipate there will be one million unfulfilled jobs between now and the year 2020 in Computer Science," Hutchinson said.
One company executive recently told Hutchinson anybody who can use any ability in computer programming will have a job tomorrow. Hutchinson told approximately 550 students assembled at Cardinal Arena that under the new law they now have an option to take Computer Science one year in high school and it will count towards their Math requirements.
"My purpose in being here today is to ask you a favor," Hutchinson said. "As Governor, I would like to ask you to take a Computer Science class while you're in high school here at Farmington."
In a question and answer session with students after the presentation, one student wanted to know why the Governor would fight to make this happen?
"I want to create jobs and a leader is always looking for a way to have an impact," Hutchinson said. "This is a low investment in terms of money and offers a high return. The goal is to have 20 percent of the student body take computer coding. It's not for everybody and that's OK."
"Have you coded at all?" asked another student.
"Just a little bit. If you have coded you're probably ahead of me," Hutchinson said, explaining he was inspired by his granddaughter, Ella Beth, who learned enough
General News on 05/13/2015