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SAP Africa Begins Code Week in Nigeria, Targets 11,000 Schools

Riding on the power of technology to drive digital literacy among staff and students in Nigeria, SAP Africa has commenced its pilot phase project for the training of secondary school students and their teachers in software coding, beginning with Ojodu Grammar School in Lagos.

A team of SAP Africa, led the President of SAP Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Mr. Franck Cohen, are already in Lagos for the project and visited Ojodu Grammar School,where the team commenced training.

According to Cohen, Ojodu Grammar School is part of the pilot project, with an initial plan to cover 11,000 secondary schools in Nigeria.

The project is designed to train students and teachers in software coding. SAP has a free online course known as Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for students and teachers who register for the programme. The vision of SAP, according to Cohen, is to train Nigerians on relevant technology skills and equip them with skills that will make them become employers of labour.

"Software Coding is a technology language that transverse the study of Science and technology and we have an online platform for teaching coding skills to teachers and students, free of charge," Cohen said, adding that 11 countries in Africa, Nigeria inclusive, will benefit from the initiative, which has already commenced in South Africa.

The  Principal of the school,  Mrs. Victoria Kolawole, thanked SAP Africa for the initiative  and for extending it to Africa, beginning from her school. She said the initiative would further expose the students and teachers to new technology skills.

Announcing the software coding pilot project at the Ojodu Grammar School as part of the run-up to Africa Code Week (ACW) in October 2015, Cohen said 100 children between the ages of 8 and 11 years will be taught software coding skills in a fun-filled, hands-on workshop, facilitated by SAP in primary schools, while an estimated 20,000 students ranging between the ages of 8 to 24 years from various schools will be participating in software coding workshops in South Africa, Angola, Cameroon, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo and Tunisia.

Africa Code Week is being driven by SAP along with partners such as Simplon from France, the Galway Education Centre from Ireland and the Cape Town Science Centre. Its purpose is to empower youth, teachers and parents with the language of software programming using a freely available scratch system.

“SAP is committed to helping Africa’s youth become fluent in software coding, the language of the digital age. With the Africa Code Week initiative, we hope to enable Africa’s youth to further contribute to the continent’s success in this digital age", Cohen said.

A new Harbor Research study has found that while 65 per cent of today’s technology applications generate revenue, the number will rise to 80 per cent by 2018.

Although smart homes, wearables and sports markets currently lead in application development today, future growth will come from the healthcare and automotive sectors, as well as smart cities.

Software coding is everywhere and the youth of today have to be empowered with coding skills. Software coding is growing in popularity and computer literacy is becoming a significant driver in establishing future generations in the workplace. However, less than one per cent of African children leave school with basic coding skills,,according to SAP.

“SAP is proud to be part of the Africa Code Week programme which aims to provide African youth with the critical skills required for today’s challenging job market. This exciting programme aligns perfectly with the SAP Africa’s Skills for Africa initiative which promotes both skills development and job creation across the continent. It will also contribute to Africa becoming a future net exporter of technology skills to the rest of the world,” Cohen said. 

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