The Washington State House of Representatives is set to debate a bill that will allow computer programming to be considered a foreign language.
House Bill 1445 will count programming as a foreign language requirement for the purpose of in-state college admissions. Two years of computer science or programming in high school are necessary for university admission in Washington.
Washington became the second state after Kentucky to file a similar bill.
The bill's authors are Rep. Chad Magendanz and Rep. Chris Reykdal. Their bill seeks to amend the existing state law that only recognizes "any natural language" that is "formally studied... including a Native American language, American Sign Language, Latin, or ancient Greek."
Reykdal told Arstechnica that high-paying computer science jobs are growing far faster than people can fill them. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that employment of computer and information research scientists is expected to grow 15 percent from 2012 to 2022, or faster than the average for all occupations.
Reykdal noted, however, that most Washington students study a language for the first time in high school, which is too late to usually be effective.
"By high school it's just a way for kids to get into college. If we're serious about language, we should embed it earlier," he said.
"If we were serious we would put language in our elementary schools when the brain is mapping in a different way, and we would have kids fluent by 6th or 7th grade". Hence, the reason for filing the bill making computer science a foreign language.
Reykdal said he wants to give kids a meaningful shot in getting some computer science basics before they go to university.