Back in my good old middle school days, Microsoft Office and especially Word was THE program that every computer had to have. At first it was only in certain labs, then the whole school had it. When the state provided laptops, we didn't have Word, and writing papers, getting them to print, etc, was a nightmare. Everyone had learned Word because it was so standard. It was a great program and did exactly what you needed it to do, and didn't lack any features.
I feel as if Photoshop will be the next big, standardized program, that everyone will learn at some point. As digital media continues to grow we will probably see more and more of it being introduced into classrooms and onto computers around the world. Photoshop IS the Word of digital media; it does everything you could need and is extremely flexible. It's a great piece of software, and (imo), everybody SHOULD learn to use it. I've heard that said many times, but what does NS think?