Ahhh...
So..If one is to learn to cook, one must first thoroughly understand the history of cooking, the chemical reactions involved and the fundamentals such as the physics behind boiling water? And naturally, the objective is not to get the little cherub capable of feeding themselves, but to turn out the next Heston Blumenthal.
Sorry.. No thanks. I'll put an egg into a pan of water and learn as I go along.
Absolutely agree. Computer programming is a hard frustrating difficult job. But this is not a job centre course. The objective is to turn out kids who have enough knowledge to understand what is out there and find the course that will actually lead to a job. Right now, this is not happening.
An office skills course will not be of much use to a graphic designer. And there is not a career path from word processing to programming. But you can't really figure that out without knowing what is available and how each thing interacts with the rest.
Who knows.. It might even make your job a bit easier if you don't have to cater for pig ignorant people who insist on doing things the way they always have no matter how different the new system is.
Teach basic computer literacy. Do you know how many people still can't use a directory structure sensibly? Let alone understand the difference between curt and copy.
Teach the anatomy of a computer. If even 10% stop thinking that the bit that everything plugs into is a CPU, that will be worth it in it's self.
Teach basic maintenance.
Teach the absolute basics of how a program works.
Teach basic image manipulation.
None of it has to be to a level that would be useful getting a job. In fact, the getting of a job is not the target. It should have as it's aim, to create computer literate people who can go on to specialise in their chosen path.
We don't expect every English class to turn out a class full of authors with every graduation, but literate people can use the ability to read to further their ambitions beyond manual labour.
Nor do we expect every person who gets a pass in maths to be a mathematician. We do expect them to be at least basically numerate.
Forget the vocational level stuff. Teach them how to use a versatile tool instead of how to use a few programs from one company.