What are the benefits from using IEC 1131-3 PLC languages as the basis for training future control engineers?

With the increase in memory size of many of today´s PLCs, ladder programming can now be used to build very large systems, bringing significant software development problems. However, it is often very difficult to build well structured programs using ladder programs because generally there is limited or no support for re-usable software components such as procedures, subroutines or program blocks. The new IEC 1131-3 PLC languages standard has addressed many of the limitations of conventional PLC languages by defining a coherent suite of languages and concepts. These encourage the development of quality PLC software which should make the standard attractive to those involved in teaching control languages