There is a petition doing the rounds to have children learn programming skills at school. John Graham-Cumming is discussing it with his readers here.
I've pondered in the past the different ways of thinking about the world and approaching problems and wondered if these might be the basis for a curriculum fit for the twenty-first century. (The learning-free curriculum that is being introduced here in Scotland is certainly not doing the job).
For example, I think that economics is a tool for understanding the world that gives important insights into the way the world works. Indeed in one of the Baltic states (Estonia, if I remember rightly) economics is a compulsory subject at high school. Formal logic is another area that I think is important.
In the same way, I think that programming is a way of approaching problems that has a more general application than simply writing computer code. So I reckon the petition is a Good Thing.