This is going to date me but here goes:  Back in the late 1970s, with my heart set on a career in journalism and my hopes set on a place at Wellington Polytechnic’s journalism course at the end of my U.E. year, I took up typing.

We had a 'free' double period, which most six formers used to skive off in some manner or other.  Not me.  I joined a roomful of female classmates (yes, that did help influence my choice, I must admit) and introduced my fingers to an old Underwood typewriter. I took a lot of good-natured ribbing for taking up 'what secretaries are there for' but I figured if my working life was going to be spent largely hunched over a typewriter I’d better ensure my typing was as fast as possible.

Of course, this was the only keyboard I was going to come into contact with.  Waimea College had no computers back then, nor did any homes or offices. Computers and the Internet were still the stuff of Harlan Ellison short stories. It was a world largely free of keyboards outside typing pools – but those who did type were more valued the faster they could pump out words per minute.  Transcribing shorthand.

Fast forward 30 years and keyboards are, of course, everywhere.  Kids are introduced to them pretty well as soon as their schooling begins.  And if, as adults, we don’t use computers in our everyday careers we do outside the office, selling goods on Trade Me as the sun sets over surburbia.

Why, then, aren’t we teaching our kids how to touch type as part of their everyday education?  And adults for that matter (oh, that’s right, our Government sees little value in educating adults at night school). Successive Governments have held the productivity stick over us, cajoling us to work smarter...and faster.... as our standard of living slides down the OECD rankings.

Surely the faster, and more accurately we can type the better off we’d be? Instead, we’re a nation of fumbling fingers, usually banging away with only two or three digits, cursing and correcting as we go.

And, yes, I know texting has been elevated to an artform of supersonic speed but there are, as yet, few careers where mobiles are used more than computers. Perhaps I should launch a new Facebook group entitled “Touch typing can save New Zealand’s economic future”. Or Tweet to the same effect.

But I’m not that type of typist.  And I have an auction on Trade Me about to close.