CodeLagos to Reach Out-Of-School Residents, Expands to 500 Schools by January 2018

As part of efforts to further broaden access to coding education for Lagos residents, the Lagos State Government has expanded the CodeLagos initiative to Out-of-School centres. These centres include Herbert Macaulay Library, Yaba; Ilupeju Public Library, Ilupeju; Isolo Public Library, Isolo; and Onikan Youth Centre, Lagos Island. Each will host Four (4) Classes daily from8:30 am to 4 pm.

https://twitter.com/CodeLagos/status/930736583401267200

Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Mr Obafela Bank-Olemoh explained that CodeLagos Out-of-School program will provide access to coding Education for interested Lagosians aged 16 years and above, who are currently not in any primary or secondary school in Lagos State.

Explaining the Out-of-School program further, Bank-Olemoh said that the classes will run for six weeks, Monday to Friday, one hour 30 minutes per class. The classes will cover Web Development and Fundamentals of Java and Python.

https://twitter.com/CodeLagos/status/929977052387840010

Mr Bank-Olemoh has also revealed that the CodeLagos initiative would have been expanded to a minimum of 500 schools across the State by January 2018. He made this revelation at a joint briefing with the representatives of one of Africa’s leading financial technology firms, SystemSpecs to indicate an alliance by both firms to expand increase the manpower base of the state by empowering young Lagosians to significantly contribute to the advancements of the future, through CodeLagos.

According to him, “By January 2018, the programme would have expanded to a minimum of 500 schools across the State, while the Out-of-School programme will expand to all the public libraries and selected community centres”.

CodeLagos is an initiative of the Lagos State Ministry of Education aimed at teaching young people how to write code and creatively solve problems. It was unveiled in November 2016 with the aim of teaching one million Lagosians how to code before 2019 so as to make Lagos the technology frontier for Africa.

https://twitter.com/CodeLagos/status/930021427943702528

The pilot phase of the training enabled the state to equip about 5,464 primary and secondary school students in the State with “critical life skills” which included basic computing, computational thinking, and use of basic computer programming tools like Scratch and Python.

https://twitter.com/CodeLagos/status/929972979131445248

Extended to out-of-school residents through public centres, the project has the potential to further broaden access to coding education for Lagos residents and will most likely attain the state’s goal at the set time. The CodeLagos program is totally free for participants.