The education minister has announced a coding education program to help pupils prepare for the jobs market.
The Department for Education said the program would be offered to all children in primary schools, and was designed to give them a good foundation to prepare for work.
It is part of a series of schemes that aim to boost the skills of young people in key subjects.
This week, the education secretary, Nicky Morgan, announced an £80 million scheme to help the disadvantaged.
Code-learning program code-learning is being launched at primary schools in London, Cambridge, Oxford and Manchester in a bid to help young people learn coding, coding skills and computer literacy, to prepare them for the job market.
The first cohort will be able to learn coding and code in their first three years of primary school.
A second cohort will follow in their fifth and sixth years, and then will be eligible for a further six-year extension to help them develop their coding and coding skills in an apprenticeship.
Coding, coding and computer skills will also be taught in secondary schools.
All pupils aged between 11 and 16 in primary and secondary schools in England will be offered a coding and programming program.
If you are not able to take part in the first cohort, you will be matched to a tutor for your child in the second cohort.
To help with this, pupils will also get an online coding training course.
Pupils will be asked to help with coding, but the first-year coding program will not be offered until next year.
As part of the coding education scheme, pupils in primary school will be taught about the role of computers and software in the classroom, and will be encouraged to think about the software they are using.
For example, they will be expected to consider how they can better understand the software used in their work, and how they could improve their skills.
They will also have a chance to ask questions about how they might be more confident in their skills and how that might affect their employment prospects.
These are not compulsory subjects, but are aimed at helping pupils develop coding and writing skills.
The scheme will be delivered in the schools of primary and second-level schools in each of the three cities.
In addition to helping pupils prepare, the scheme is expected to help boost the career prospects of young apprentices, who are expected to be the most vulnerable in the workforce.
Teachers and teachers unions have welcomed the initiative, but have also warned that there are still concerns about how much the programme will help pupils in the current job market, with one claiming that the government was “giving up on this”.
But the chief executive of the National Association of Head Teachers, Sir Nicholas Soames, said the government had “made an investment” in coding education.
“We need more than just more computer science courses,” he said.
He added: “The government must also invest in young people who are most likely to find themselves in this new role, who will be the ones who will develop their skills the most.
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