One of the founding fathers of the UK computer gaming industry has spoken out about the need for children to be taught coding in schools.
Ian Livingstone, who plans to set up a free school in Hammersmith next year, said the subject can train the mind in the same way that Latin does.
Mr Livingstone, the man behind the Tomb Raider series of video games starring Lara Croft and who co-founded Games Workshop, plans to ultimately open a network of free schools to transform the current approach to secondary education.
He said: “Children today are totally different from 50 years ago. They run their lives through social media and smart phones. They share their ideas and their creativity. They collaborate naturally.”
But he argued that when children get to secondary school they meet a regime of standardisation and conformity.
His free school of 800 pupils will focus on science, technology, engineering, art and maths, as well as developing “computing, coding and creative skills.”
Speaking about the importance of coding he said: “It teaches computational and algorithmic thinking, logic, trial and error, collaboration. And it delivers a portfolio you can take to an employer and say: I did this.”
His approach has been criticised by Toby Young, whose free school - also in Hammersmith - is run along more traditional lines with compulsory Latin lessons.
Defending the games industry in The Guardian, Mr Livingstone said: “Lara Croft is strong, intelligent and independent, and she doesn’t need men.
"Games are now accepted as an art form. Bafta celebrates them in its awards ceremonies. They get the same tax breaks as films. They have music, art, narrative, graphics - an extraordinary combination of arts and science with an interactive element.”
Mr Livingstone advised the former education secretary Michael Gove to transform the national curriculum’s approach to computing by scrapping ICT and replacing it with Computer Science.
