
Another argument for testing is that when it’s time to refactor, and that’s always, a solid test suite will allow a programmer to focus solely on the code, without worrying if the program will break because of an inconspicuous change.
In the spirit of teaching students to fish, the primary concern of any tech education program should be about demonstrating and teaching the framework for learning — the skill of researching and understanding a well-defined but unfamiliar technical topic. The specific set of topics covered in the curriculum are secondary to that goal.