The Sandton Library hosted a coding boot camp in collaboration with Code4Change.
Ten schools participated and learners competed in groups to create websites.
Jeff Nyoka, manager of library services – e-learning said in January this year, Library Information Services (LIS) introduced coding activities to community members, particularly young people in the e-learning classrooms at the libraries.
Nyoka said LIS had always played a supportive role and worked with schools and educational institutions.
They also provide this support by collaborating with NGOs and corporations that can provide coding skills and encourage youth to embrace computer science.
“Recently the Department of Basic Education announced that coding will be among the three new subjects to be introduced in the next two years [others being Swahili and maritime studies],” he said.
He highlighted that through e-learning, City Of Johannesburg libraries needed to be at the forefront in preparing communities and educators.
“Most township schools are under-resourced and do not have electronic resources such as laptops or tablets or computer rooms.”
Code4Change was approached as an organisation that has already been successfully working with schools through their CodeJika school clubs project – a vibrant ecosystem of learner-run coding clubs in secondary schools.
Nyoka said that they had educators, Microsoft officials, information and communications technology companies and staff from other libraries join on the day.
“Students were given different spaces within the library, a laptop and put into teams to work on the coding project designing an online CV which is part of website design through coding.”
The winning team was from the University of Johannesburg Metropolitan Academy.
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