Computer Savvy A Vital Necessity Let’s Get Wired Technology Demand Cannot Be Ignored.

The future belongs to computers and people who know how to use them.

This isn’t a knock on the liberal arts.

As they grow up, children still need to have “Goodnight Moon” read to them. When they get into middle school, girls still should sing along with the radio and catch up on fashion. Boys still need contact sports and regular training in people-to-people manners and conversation.

But there should be no doubt in the minds of educators, parents and policy-makers that before a kid is graduated from high school, computer literacy should be a required competency.

Knowing your way around a computer will be a crucial dividing line between those who prosper and succeed in the 21st century and those who do not.

Already at most elite American universities, computers are listed as required classroom materials on the first day of freshman year. At many trade schools, computer keyboarding and related skills either are the first classes taught or are prerequisites for entering everything from auto mechanics to office support.

The need for computer literacy will only intensify in the next decade. Today, 170,000 high-tech computer-related jobs are open and unfilled in this country, primarily because our schools cannot produce enough computer-literate people.

And we are not alone. A recent Business Week story reported that developing countries such as Bulgaria and Argentina are aching for computer-literate people. Microsoft considers the shortage of computer-literate people so severe that the company has set up free computer classes in 11 European countries to get people up to speed. The international shortage of computer-literate people underscores the reality that computer skills will be a worldwide requirement for today’s students.

Back home, Spokane School District 81 is right on target as it keeps pushing hard to pass a technology bond issue for Spokane schools. Other school districts should be doing the same.

Schools need to take the lead in computer training because schools will continue to be places where kids who aren’t well-off, and whose parents don’t have a computer at home, can be given a key to later success in life.

It doesn’t matter whether a kid plans to study Shakespeare or the workings under a car’s hood. The computer and knowledge of how to use it will be important tools for building a successful adult life.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see “PC should augment traditional schooling”

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = COLUMN, EDITORIAL - From both sides CREDIT = Chris Peck/For the editorial board