How wide spread was this then? It seems like in the late 70s and 80s a lot of children (as in less than 15) learned programming young but this has dropped off in the 00s with the general rise of helicopter parenting and infantilization[0], and even with things like arduinos and such it seems like kids pick it up in class but then move on to other things. You certainly don't have young people actually end up developing actual things apart from the exceptions.

[0] this is my hypothesis around this in general tbh.

They teach "programming" but it's really making a simple web page.