MONROVIA-Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that left an estimated 250 million primary and secondary school learners across Africa not attending school, the 2021 SAP Africa Code Week (ACW) has celebrated a successful year with students and teachers engaged in coding and digital skills learning in Liberia.
Africa Code Week (ACW) was created to offer free opportunities for young Africans to learn coding skills and for teachers to be trained on digital learning curricula. Strong partnerships with the public, private and civil society sectors across the continent driving sustainable impact by building teaching capacity and supporting the adoption of coding into national curricula in support of UN Sustainable Development Goals 4, 5 and 17.
In Liberia, the event has been ongoing through the months of August to September 2021. Six schools participated in the sessions, with an estimated 800 students from J.J Roberts High School, Cathedral Catholic School, All God Children High School, Bridge of Hope High School, Bishop Marweah Institute and ONICS International High School.
The students were taken through Introduction to Coding with emphasis on Digital Skills, and Overview of Africa Code Week.
This is the 3rd in the series of continental hosting of the event by the West Africa ICT Action Network, a sub-regional ICT NGO.
In 2019 alone, the initiative saw 3.85m children participating in coding workshops and 39,000 teachers mobilized across 37 countries across Africa.
In 2020, ACW increased the program’s reach to the entire continent to deepen impact and ensure no child was left behind. Claire Gillissen-Duval, Director of EMEA Corporate Social Responsibility and Co-founder of Africa Code Week at SAP celebrate the joyous occasion, “The all-female top three proved that the future of teaching cannot be envisioned without girls.
“In addition to the winners, we also gave thanks to the ongoing support from Government, who join us on our digital journey and believe in the importance and relevance of 21st century learning for the development of native African excellence.
The solid base of our partnership with the Moroccan and Nigerian Ministries of Education is the foundation of a successful model which we wish to replicate throughout Africa, to encourage governments to include computer coding in their national curricula.”
Africa Code Week Ambassador, Peterking Quaye said this year’s event will further consolidate efforts of technical community to help kids and youth in Liberia to learn coding using top of the world programming software.
“The impact of this event is intended to simply ensure that students are introduce to practical skills of coding, expect more programmers emerging from primary schools across Liberia soon, ” he added.
Since 2015, the SAP Africa Code Week (ACW) has offered free opportunities for young Africans to learn coding skills and for teachers to be trained on digital learning curricula.
“Despite the COVID-19 disruption for schools which impacted hundreds of millions of youth across Africa, children from more than 54 countries stepped-up to share their vision of the future of education,” says Africa Code Week’s Global Coordinator, Olajide Ademola Ajayi.
Ajayi added that the youth engagement throughout the challenge was incredibly inspiring, “while there can ultimately be only one winner, the quality of entries at the inaugural AfriCAN Code Challenge encouraged hope and confidence for Africa’s future, shaped by the largest youth population in the world.”
The SAP Africa Code Week key partners include UNESCO Youth Mobile, Irish Aid, the ADEA, Google and GIZ/BMZ. In Liberia Q-traco (H & A) supported the event to offer sampling and free product (Miksi Chocolate) for students.
Comments are closed.