No fewer than 15,000 pupils and students of 30 primary and secondary schools in Lagos State are expected to benefit from a one-month free coding education to be provided by two NGOs.
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Mr Moss Uromtah, Convener, Codefest International, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Tuesday.
The NGOs, Codefest International and India Stem Alliance (ISA) are into promotion of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) innovation, particularly among children and youths.
The organisations are offering 30 free licences to schools in Lagos State, thus creating an opportunity for 15,000 pupils and students to learn coding for free.
Uromtah said that the NGOs were offering free virtual learning on Discovery Education.
He explained that ISA and Codefest were offering 30-day free virtual learning on Discovery Education to keep the children’s mind active during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
He said: “We are offering free learning opportunity of coding to keep our kids’ minds active.
“We implore you to register your children, niece or nephew, friends and neighbours for this period of time to keep them active.
“The kids will have fun as well as learn and keep their minds alert as they await schools’ resumption.’’
Uromtah said that all that was needed for the registration was for the child to send his name and grade to the codefest team.
He noted that there were other opportunities such as the 300 Iñnovation Challenge with the objective of raising 300 kids in STEM innovation.
According to him, the 300 Innovation Challenge is an ISA and Codefest initiative to raise 300 kids in STEM innovation.
“The goal is to get the kids and build products that meet social innovation through fun, learning and coding,’’ Uromtah said.
He said that there had been success stories with kids; such as a nine-year old who developed over 30 games.
He said that the challenge was open for kids between six years and above in Nigeria’s primary and secondary schools, scheduled to begin on May 27.
Uromtah said kids could submit as many projects around games, animation, Web/Mobile App etc.
He listed programming languages to be used as Scratch, HTML and Python.