Python is as relevant as any of the other languages you mentioned. It is actually superior IMO for some tasks so it is a good tool to have in your tool bag. I

Python is as relevant as any of the other languages you mentioned. It is actually superior IMO for some tasks so it is a good tool to have in your tool bag. I personally, wouldn't write an entire system in it, but many very successful companies have, so I think this is more a personal preference than a language capability issue. As for teaching it. Frankly I think the entire college education around computer science at most schools is lacking. I see so often that they start people in the higher level languages that abstract students from the underpinnings of what they are doing. I seriously think students should still have to start with a low level language and go through the learning of building solid data structures, algorithms, etc. Of course, not all schools are bad about this, but I see most colleges in the US starting with Java or .NET and not really focusing on teaching fundamentals or how choices affect how the software runs on hardware. Not saying everyone has to be an expert embedded programmer, but knowing how the hardware processes what they are asking it to do would be really helpful. And damn it, they should be able to write basic data structures without using a 3rd party (or standard) library. Not because they will have to do it often, but it teaches them when to use what and why. I would agree with you that students don't have as many employment options in Python as they will .NET, Javascript, PHP etc, but then again, hopefully they are learning more than just one language and having Python be one of those would still be a benefit IMO.