Unfortunately I don't know if it ever will reach the same level of importance as literacy, because the industry seems to be trying very hard to discourage regular users from ever becoming programmers or even "advanced users"; see the War on General Purpose Computing:
http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
I mean, how do you even convince someone that learning to program is a good idea if it takes jumping through many serious hoops just to set up? The majority of interaction with computers is with locked-down mobile devices. Contrast this with home computers in the 80s that were practically begging to be programmed as they came with little other than a built-in interpreter, or the early days of the PC where user magazines had source code - in assembly language - that people could enter in DEBUG and create small but useful programs.
The walled gardens of app stores have also grown to the point where simply sharing an executable with someone has become an almost taboo act, with some central authority telling the users who to trust.
It's in the interests of the software industry to keep the majority of users computer-illiterate, so they can be profited from. On the other hand, basic literacy is valued by the industry, because it makes it easier to persuade users who know how to read and write (adverts wouldn't work if people couldn't read them...)