Tony Abbott ridicules his own party in school coding gaffe

Perth : Prime Minister Tony Abbott has made an embarrassing blunder, ridiculing his own government’s investment in technology education. During question time on Wednesday, Labor leader Bill Shorten asked the Prime Minister whether he would support coding being taught in every primary and secondary school. “Let’s just understand exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has asked,” the Prime Minister said. “He said that he wants primary school kids to be taught coding so they can get the jobs of the future. Does he want to send them all out to work at the age of 11? Is that what he wants to do? Seriously?”
The Abbott government has already invested $3.5 million in the coding across the curriculum package. While the program does not make coding compulsory, it will develop a suite of resources that support and promote best practice teaching across different year levels, including primary schools. Science and business leaders have long called for coding to be taught formally in schools.Mr Abbott quickly tried to backtrack, telling question time, “We are doing it Madam Speaker, we are doing it”. On Thursday Mr Abbott further distanced himself from his remarks from the previous day.
“It’s now on the curriculum at every level and it’s backed up by money which this Government has committed,” he told question time. “If the leader of the opposition ever did his homework as opposed to going out there with stunt after stunt, political ploy after political ploy, he would have known that.”
It is understood the Federal Department of Education has met with interested parties, including Google, Intel, Telstra, the Office of the Chief Scientist and several university computer science faculties to determine where the government can make the greatest contribution through the initiative.