MOST of us have no real idea of how communication technology is likely to change in the next few years.

For many adults, this is already a complex subject and one with which they find it very hard to keep up. While we may happily use the internet for the basics and enjoy social media, the business of cyber security, for example, is an unknown field.

However, do we recognise that this is both vitally important and the new “battlefield” of international relations and, as such, is as capable of threatening our country as any physical attack.

Hackers with criminal intent or from some other foreign power pose a very real threat to the general security of the UK. Russia in particular is apparently suspected of planning sustained attacks on Western targets.

The cyber security industry is fast-growing, currently employing 58,000 experts, but the Public Accounts Committee warns that it’s difficult to recruit people with the right skills.

For all these reasons, it makes eminent good sense that our schoolchildren are now to be offered lessons in cyber security. This will not only help find the experts of the future but could also be pivotal in defending the UK from attack.

The plan is for a five-year pilot scheme involving 5,700 pupils aged 14 and over spending up to four hours a week on the subject. There will be classroom and online teaching, “real world challenges” and work experience is also to be made available from later in the year.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is providing £20 million for the lessons which are designed to fit around pupils’ current courses and exams.

As well as possibly filling this skills’ gap and adding to the security of the country, what this forward-thinking new scheme also provides is an honest appraisal of the dangers of hacking.

There have been several high-profile cases in the last few years of young people hacking into vital national organisations, threatening global safety. To them, it may feel just like a ccomputer game, something in which to succeed, to get past obstacles and find the “prize”. To these organisations, it is a deadly “game” of security and survival.

All in all, it’s heartening to see a practical approach to something as worrying as cyber security and its possible breaches. And it just shows how much we will rely on our children’s burgeoning computer skills.