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Why not mandatory? Lots of other core, useful skills are.

Because I believe it is not an essential surviving skill for everyone (at least for now).

Neither is literature, nor languages, nor history, nor geography, nor mathematics over simple addition and subtraction.

But we teach these to kids so that they have a greater chance of understanding the world around them.

Fair point. But what subject should we replace from the current curriculum? Adding another subject seems like another burden for students.