Why don't poor countries like Liberia teach its citizens programming?

[Lorenzo]

It's interesting to see how low the cost of living is in countries like Liberia and Uganda. The median GDP per capita of Liberia is a paltry $450 per year according to the latest figures from the World Bank. For Uganda, it's not much higher at $570 per year.

Typical hourly rates for freelance C++ or PHP programmers start at around $20 and many are paid higher than this. This seems like a fairly unremarkable wage for someone who lives in a developed country such as the United States or Australia but it would represent an unbelievable amount of wealth for your typical Liberian or Ugandan.

Programming seems to have additional advantages compared to other fields in that the resources required to teach programming are not quite as expensive (e.g. training a biochemist or a physicist requires access to expensive scientific facilities and equipment whereas training a programmer only requires a basic computer and a couple of textbooks).

The other advantage, and perhaps the most important, is that programming transcends global boundaries. Someone who lives in Liberia can work for a company that is based in the United States or Australia.

See where I'm going with this?

My personal guess is that I suppose this could work in the short term, but I'm not too sure what would happen if millions upon millions of Liberians, Ugandans, and Congolese flooded the programming market. Nevertheless, it's surprising to see that very few (if any) poor countries have seriously considered the idea.

Your thoughts? Opinions?

[Snail2]

Probably because of about one third of the Liberian population and less than half of the ppl in Uganda are literate. There are not too much computers as well. In addition if you want to train useful programmers that's not something you can get done in a few weeks, and when ppl struggling to get enough money to keep themselves afloat, they need every hand in the family on the workplaces instead of in schools.

[Lorenzo]

Probably because of about one third of the Liberian population and less than half of the ppl in Uganda are literate.

While that's actually quite a good point, I'm not sure if your figures are correct and even if they are correct, the literacy rate for the younger generation is undoubtedly higher.

UNICEF figures show that the literacy rate for males aged 15-24 in Uganda is almost 90%. For Liberia, it's slightly under 65%:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/uganda_statistics.html
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/liberia_statistics.html

There are not too much computers as well.

Moore's law means that this shouldn't be a big problem nowadays. Most programming languages have ridiculously low system requirements. You could learn how to write code on a Pentium III or a stripped-down Raspberry Pi which would cost under $30.

In addition if you want to train useful programmers that's not something you can get done in a few weeks,

Perhaps not a few weeks but 3 years should definitely be possible. After all, people who live in these poor countries are still as intelligent and capable of learning as those from wealthier countries.

and when ppl struggling to get enough money to keep themselves afloat, they need every hand in the family on the workplaces instead of in schools.

This is true. Another good point.

[Aggressor66]

The education system in Liberia was really affected by the 14-year civil war.
In essence, an entire generation of children missed out on any education.
Then came Ebola.

[countryfree]

Obviously, OP has never been to Africa. Outside big cities, many schools still don't have electricity.

[Wilikon]

It's interesting to see how low the cost of living is in countries like Liberia and Uganda. The median GDP per capita of Liberia is a paltry $450 per year according to the latest figures from the World Bank. For Uganda, it's not much higher at $570 per year.

Typical hourly rates for freelance C++ or PHP programmers start at around $20 and many are paid higher than this. This seems like a fairly unremarkable wage for someone who lives in a developed country such as the United States or Australia but it would represent an unbelievable amount of wealth for your typical Liberian or Ugandan.

Programming seems to have additional advantages compared to other fields in that the resources required to teach programming are not quite as expensive (e.g. training a biochemist or a physicist requires access to expensive scientific facilities and equipment whereas training a programmer only requires a basic computer and a couple of textbooks).

The other advantage, and perhaps the most important, is that programming transcends global boundaries. Someone who lives in Liberia can work for a company that is based in the United States or Australia.

See where I'm going with this?

My personal guess is that I suppose this could work in the short term, but I'm not too sure what would happen if millions upon millions of Liberians, Ugandans, and Congolese flooded the programming market. Nevertheless, it's surprising to see that very few (if any) poor countries have seriously considered the idea.

Your thoughts? Opinions?

Raspberry Pi + Python programming for students could be a good start?

[criptix]

i think main problem in these nations are of economical and political reasons.
they also had civil wars that are not long back in history.

but nevertheless it is a good idea and the (additional) infrastructure needed for it is pretty cheap nowadays.

[maku]

Op, you know what Africa is so ill developed. People are starving and countries like Liberia exists? Because they don't care. It is not simple matter of telling them - oh, wait we know that you can do well if you will learn how to code! - people there would not listen, they do not know how to change, or they don't know that there is better world out there. We need to wait a whole generation to be able to change that system.

[r0ach]

In Africa, if you look at the languages there, they can only say things like "the cat is up the tree".  They don't have abstract terminology to say, "The cat is one third the way up the tree".  You kind of need to be able to handle abstract thought like math before being given a computer and told to program.

The Roman empire referred to anyone without a written language as "barbarians".  Having a written language is probably what develops people into being able to advance in increasingly higher level concepts.  If you look at any area with a long history of written language, they do not have problems like this.

[bryant.coleman]

First Liberia should teach its citizens how to read and write (at least in their native language). After that they can try programming and all that.

[freedomno1]

Literacy is the first step towards programming
At the margins it is possible for someone to learn code by pure memorization.... but if someone can do that we can assume they are literate, the reasonable second step would be to get them to read then use online learning like Khan Academy to get knowledge they can't attain in a classroom environment, especially with Ebola and wars

(That raises another question where do they get Wi-Fi or internet connections, unless they use USB sticks with books and installed programs with practice modules to self run and execute as a DIY without internet, it would be difficult to do services in a timely manner unless it involved offline work then quick uploads to a filehost.)

Well Gates Notes did say that their is major change coming to Africa so who knows could happen in 20 years, once other major issues are dealt with such as mobile banking for the poor etc. Programming could be seen as a natural extension. (Under Better Software will revolutionize learning) (Gatesnotes)
http://www.gatesnotes.com/2015-annual-letter?lang=en&page=0

[Bizmark13]

As others have already said, Liberia is probably too much of an extreme example. I can see how OP's idea might work better in less poor (but still poor) countries like Moldova and Ukraine though. Both countries have high literacy rates and reasonably well developed technology infrastructures and yet have low average costs of living and GDP per capitas of below $4,000 per year. $20-50 per hour would be quite a good wage for many people living in these countries.

[saddampbuh]